Akuma no Naruto
by Lord Blood
Summary: Naruto is thrown into the past, where he is no longer the feared Akuma no Naruto, and where he is no longer a god of shinobi. Evil!Naruto. Full summary inside.
1. Chapter 1

Akuma no Naruto

Summary: Naruto is thrown into the past, where he is no longer the feared Akuma no Naruto, and where he is no longer a god of shinobi. Instead he is a pitiful young four year old. Not seeing any way to return to his future, Naruto resigns himself to having to rebuild his fame, reputation, and leagues of loyal subordinates. Dark!Naruto.

Chapter 1

One man, by himself, had taken control of every single shinobi village. All, that is, except for the village of Konoha.

The reason for this wasn't because Konoha was able to resist this man's powerful might, but because he wanted to save its destruction for last.

After having learned of the Kyuubi's power inside of him at the age of seven, he had accepted the monstrous fox's promises of power, in exchange for a favor. The favor, which had led the man to succumb himself in the depths of evil, was basically a request by the Kyuubi to spread the fear of his name...everywhere. And of course, the only way to do this was by either eliminating each shinobi village or by taking control of them.

However, there was a problem with the request. As he grew older, the seal that the Yondaime Hokage had applied to him siphoned away more and more of the Kyuubi's chakra, adding it to his already impressive reserve. As a result, the presence of the great nine tailed fox diminished, until it completely disappeared by the end of his fourteenth birthday. As an honor to the greatest being to have ever walked the earth, the man planned on spreading the fear of his own name into the Elemental Countries. It was this event that led to his gradual conquest of the world.

His first village taken was Kusa, a small ninja village that was not worthy of having a Kage, at the age of fifteen. Within three years, Taki, Oto, and Ame fell, all three also considered minor villages. In the following eight years, Kiri, Kumo, Iwa, and Suna all fell to his might. It is thus that at the age of twenty six, the legend of Akuma no Naruto was born.

-

Twenty miles away from Konoha, Akuma no Naruto calmly headed towards the village. Calmly walking along the path, he was quickly accosted by a whole contingent of Konoha shinobi.

"Ah, Rokudaime-sama, what a pleasure to see you," the five foot nine blond commented, using the suffix mockingly.

"Shut your mouth, boy! You may have conquered the other shinobi villages, but we are Konoha! As long as our will of fire burns strong, we will never lose to you, you foul demon!" the Rokudaime responded angrily.

"Watch yourself, Rokudaime. I have left your village alone for the past five years. I gave every other village no time to prepare for their demise, yet I have given you five whole years to prepare. I hope you will put up a good fight. Or else I'd be very disappointed," Naruto replied coldly, his demeanor totally changing.

Growling, the Rokudaime swung his hand forward and yelled, "Engage!"

Immediately, swarms of masked and unmasked shinobi flew forwards, weapons unsheathed and ready to attack.

Still standing there, Naruto yawned lazily. As soon as the first shinobi came into range, he struck out with his fist, smashing in the man's face and killing him right away. Spinning around the falling body, he backhanded another masked shinobi, breaking his jaw and sending him flying into the masses.

Eyes shifting upwards, he saw that the sky was blocked out by a sea of black. Grabbing the blade of the first fallen shinobi, he swung it vertically in a nonchalant manner, pouring his chakra into the tip. As a result, a wave of energy shot out, creating a gap through which the sunlight shone through, and creating a rain of scarlet blood and miscellaneous appendages.

"Come to your doom!" Naruto shouted, blocking a number of stabs and swipes at once. Without a problem, he pushed them back and stabbed several of the ninja, before he had to move away again to avoid the numerous attacks.

Two dragons made of fire roared at him, but the blond merely extended his hand toward them, creating a large gust of wind, which dispelled the flames and blew the nearby ninja away. Jumping towards the flying shinobi, he was soon forced to stop his chase by an incoming row of earth spikes.

"You're going to have to do better than that!"

With a maniacal laugh, he demolished the spikes and the man who created them.

Jumping forwards, he decapitated three more men before anyone could blink, and then buried the now dull blade into the gut of a kunoichi. More and more people rushed him, but he easily killed them all, using a combination of stray weapons, his hands and feet, and various jutsu.

The sudden sound of chirping birds drew his attention, his eyes finally landing on a crouched silver-haired man.

"Ohoho, the Chidori," Naruto stated.

The crouched man, ignoring Naruto's words, rushed forward with a determined battle cry, but Naruto simply sidestepped the man and pushed the outstretched arm into a fellow Konoha nin's chest, before pulling out the now bloody arm and snapping it. Two devastating punches, and the silver-haired man was sent flying into the air. From there, Naruto jumped up and axe kicked the flying man's neck, choking him and sending him speeding into the ground. With a giant thud, the silver-haired nin broke his left leg and his left arm, leaving him only one uninjured limb. Added to those severe injuries was the fact that his throat was crushed, due to the amazing force in the blond demon's kick. Only a medic could save the Konoha nin's life now.

Taking advantage of the pause of the Konoha nin, Naruto easily grabbed a kunai from the ground and focused his chakra into it. He then swung it through the crowd.

It was supposed to be a simple Fuuton: Kaze no Yaiba, but instead of a foot-long extended reach, it turned out to be a twenty-foot-long extended reach. Dozens of people were killed in this single stroke.

Rather than continuing using this single technique to mow down the enemies, he chose to cancel the technique, as he found that it would be too easy of a battle if he were to do that. Diversifying his moves, he then smashed the earth with both fists, causing large chunks of rock to rise upwards. At the moment of their peak, Naruto punched forward, shaping the rock into spikes and sending them flying at a speed most shinobi would never be able to witness. With a crash, numerous amounts of people were speared and crushed by the rocks.

Shocked out of their temporary stupor, the Konoha nin scattered into the air, below ground, to the left and right, and from the front and behind, trying to perform a pincer attack from both all possible directions.

Against any other S-ranked nin, that probably would've been the end of them, but this was Akuma no Naruto. He was not just an S-ranked shinobi. He was a god among shinobi, the first to ever close so close to world domination. Not only had he conquered more than one minor shinobi village (which was a somewhat common event), but he had conquered _all _of them, _and _he had conquered four of the five major villages! And the most astounding thing was that he had done this all by himself! Nothing could possibly stop him!

Throwing his arms out into the air, he shouted out to the sky. The words yelled were lost as the blond's body was suddenly encompassed with a field of electricity, random bolts of lightning shooting out several times per second. He shouted once more, even louder than last time, and even more bolts of lightning struck at the surrounding nin, killing dozens upon dozens of Konoha nin. The smell of their burnt and crispy bodies began to become overpowering, and the Rokudaime, seeing the losses of the shinobi around him, shouted to the remaining nin.

"Retreat! Full scale retreat!"

Everyone turned tail and fled towards the village, some faster than others.

Naruto calmly followed, striking down any stragglers. The sight was like a shepherd herding his sheep.

In his wake was a path of destruction.

When he reached the massive gates of Konoha, he could see dozens of shinobi standing bravely atop the tops of the gate, all equipped with various weapons. Behind them stood a row of nin with hands ready to perform a range of ninjutsu.

Somewhere behind the gates, Naruto heard the Rokudaime shout, "For Konoha! Attack!"

Immediately, hundreds of kunai and shuriken were thrown, followed by loud shouts of Kunai Kage Bunshin or Shuriken Kage Bunshin. The hundreds of projectiles turned into thousands and tens of thousands, all intent on piercing the blond demon.

He performed all kinds of kicks into the air, and fire burst forth from his feet during each one, blasting the projectiles out of the sky.

Smirking triumphantly, Naruto then placed his hands on the ground, closing his eyes. The Konoha nin seized advantage of Naruto's brief moment of concentration, and three men jumped down from the gates to try to spear him through with their katanas. However, the moment they reached within striking range of Naruto, the blond's eyes snapped open, and water seeped through the ground, rising into the air and forming small bubbles.

Adding wind chakra around the bubbles of water, he condensed them extremely finely. With a flick of his fingers, the bubbles of water were sent speeding at the three nin. Each bubble smashed into the nin and left a perfectly round hole in their bodies. The end result was three cheese-like bodies (in the fact that they were riddled with holes) and a lot of reddish bubbles.

He flicked his finger again, and the red bubbles went soaring at the nin atop the gates. Cries filled the air as many shinobi were struck, some falling forward and some falling backwards. The cries of the now-dead set off even more cries, as those behind the gates saw the fallen bodies of their comrades and friends fall among them.

More and more shinobi leapt off the gates towards Naruto, who stood there patiently. More and more shinobi fell to the ground, dead. And yet, even more kept coming.

"Is there no end to this scum?" Naruto asked rhetorically.

Honestly, he was getting a little bored. The Konoha nin were all weak, none giving him a challenge at all. Perhaps it was time to end this.

His hands blurred through several hundred handseals in only ten seconds.

"Katon: Karyuudan! Suiton: Suiryuudan! Doton: Doryuudan! Raiton: Rairyuudan! Fuuton: Fuuryuudan!"

Ten of each elemental dragon were formed, creating a whole army of dragons. The charging shinobi immediately stopped in their tracks. You would too if you were faced with fire dragons, water dragons, earth dragons, thunder dragons, and wind dragons.

Naruto threw his arm forward, commanding the dragons to attack. And attack they did. The dragons crashed through the Konoha nin, sending many flying, and killing dozens without mercy nor without stop. They finally crashed into the gates, bringing the whole thing down upon the people that stood behind.

Blood was spilt everywhere, as were various body parts.

"Buy us more time! Employ diversionary tactics! Go!" the Rokudaime shouted loudly from somewhere behind the mass of shinobi.

With a roar of determination, the many nin threw their shuriken and kunai, and multiplied them, attempting to stall Naruto.

"Have your past experiences taught you nothing, you fools?" Naruto sneered.

A gust of wind pushed back every single projectile towards their throwers. Many were pierced to death by their own weapons, but only the most experienced managed to survive with minimal wounds, as they caught several of the flying projectiles.

The just-slaughtered shinobi were replaced by a second line of nin, ready to relieve the remaining members of the first line. However, they never had a chance to do anything, as a massive wave of heat swept over them, turning them into unrecognizable lumps of burnt flesh.

What had started as thousands of warriors fighting for Konoha was now only a hundred. Refugees from all of the shinobi villages he conquered were gathered here, and they had joined Konoha to fight against him. But now, it was all for naught. With less than a hundred survivors, the end of Konoha was quickly approaching.

Naruto casually strolled past the massive amount of corpses towards the once mighty gates of Konoha, climbing over them and into the village itself.

Deeper in the village, where the village common was, the Rokudaime and his helpers continued to prepare for their last attack, while the other survivors stood in between the blond and the Hokage.

It was a brave effort, but a futile one nonetheless. A casual twist of his hands, and all of those impeding his way were sliced to pieces by the chakra-empowered winds. Finally, he reached the center of the village.

"You've lost, Danzo!" the blond shouted triumphantly. "Nothing you do now will save you from destruction! Kneel down and show me the sight of you begging for mercy!"

The one-legged man ignored Naruto's taunting, and continued with his ritual.

The demon of the Elemental Countries gave them another minute before he leapt forwards, decapitating one of the members that were helping Danzo.

"Just a little bit more," the Rokudaime muttered. "Now!"

The built-up chakra, which the Hokage and his helpers had been pouring into a seal, exploded outwards in a magnificent display.

"This is your end," Danzo stated smugly, albeit a bit tiredly. "We've only recently perfected this seal." Three of Danzo's helpers fell to the ground, dead from chakra exhaustion. "All we have to do is pour chakra into the seal, and it'll explode." Four more collapsed. "A normal exploding seal is nothing compared to this. And the best thing is, we've put in everything we have here." Danzo finished his rant with a laugh.

"You fool!" Naruto exclaimed, shocked. Two of Danzo's men died.

The shining chakra in the sky began to shine even more brightly.

"Shit!" he cursed, just as Danzo and the rest of his men fell to their knees (or knee, in Danzo's case) and collapsed.

Turning tail, he sped out of there. He only made it to the gates of Konoha when he heard the explosion. The heat came immediately afterwards.

Spinning back around, Naruto crossed his arms in front of him and called up whatever water he could in the brief moment that he had before the fire washed over him. With a shout, he condensed the water into ice, just as the fire washed over him.

The last thing he remembered before blacking out was the intense heat and the thought that he had at last conquered the world.

-

A/N: New story guys! This idea came to me at the same time as the idea for Band of Nine, and I just decided to write this story now cuz I couldn't wait anymore.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

A gasp. An intake of air. A sudden flash of movement.

A four year old Uzumaki Naruto bolted up from his small bed. His eyes darted around his surroundings.

"Where am I?" he muttered. What came out of his mouth was not his normal voice. His was several octaves higher. "What the hell happened to my voice?" That was when he noticed that everything felt...bigger.

Getting out of bed, he found out that he couldn't even see over the top of the dresser.

"Either everything here is bigger, or I'm...No way!"

The blond dashed out of the vaguely familiar room before entering what he assumed was the bathroom. Instead of his normal tanned and muscular self, all he found looking back at him was a minuscule and weak little boy.

"No! No fucking way! This can't be happening! Alright, calm yourself. Go over your last memories," Naruto instructed himself with a deep breath. "Okay, I'm Akuma no Naruto. I've conquered almost every village in the world except Konoha. I attacked Konoha today, and defeated Danzo...But the bastard activated some self destruct seal! Fuck!" the small blond swore loudly. "All of the fame, the prestige, my reputation! All...gone! No, this can't be happening. No, no, no..." he mumbled.

Eventually, the boy stopped his angry mutterings. "This means I'll just have to rebuild my empire. Perhaps I should thank Danzo for his incompetence? If it wasn't for him sending me back in time or to a different universe or whatever, I would've been stuck ruling over some peaceful empire. That's no fun. The fun is all in the conquering! Yes, when I meet Danzo here, I'll be sure to give him an appropriate 'present'." He laughed like an evil scientist. When his laughter subsided, he realized that he couldn't really do any conquering for quite some time. After all, he was in some untrained four year old body with signs of malnutrition. Just like how he used to be before the great fox decided to take him in.

Speaking of which, this finally brought back long forgotten memories of his old home. _This _was his old home._ This_ was place he had lived in for the first six or seven years of his life, in the slums of Konoha. Oh, it brought back fond memories. Memories of when he got his revenge on the villagers of Konoha, that is. It was at the time he left. His "revenge" was nothing lethal, but it could be considered painful and traumatizing...for the villagers.

Thinking to himself, he thought, '_It'll be quite some time until I'll be able to reach my past power. I'll need loyal followers to help me reach my goals until then. But who? Who can I convert to my cause?_'

He barely remembered the kids his age, as he had never socialized with them. If they grew up to later become a strong shinobi, there was a possibility that they might spark some kind of memory from Naruto.

The Kyuubi also wouldn't be contacting him until his seventh birthday, so he had three years to start preparing both a support base among the younger generation and train himself to an acceptable level.

First things first, he needed to do some chakra control exercises.

Heading out, he locked the door, for all the good that would do him, and scampered off towards the outskirts of the village, where he knew the training grounds were. It took him thirty minutes, but he managed to alternatively run and walk the mile from his house to the grounds.

'_Holy shit, how out of shape,_' he thought as he doubled over with his hands on his knees, gasping in as much air as he could. Five minutes later, he felt that he had regained enough strength to do a little more running. Unfortunately, none of the nearby trees were over five yards tall, so he wouldn't be able to go far. It didn't really matter at the moment anyway, since he didn't have the energy or control to go all the way up the tree. Not caring for that fact, he continued to practice walking and running up the tree at different speeds and different times. Soon, his chakra reserves were depleted, and his progress was displayed by the shape of a heel mark about one yard up the tree.

Deciding that that was enough for today, he then slowly began his trek back towards his apartment, going over the people that could be convinced to join him. The best place, he thought to himself, to start looking is for people who hate Konoha.

But who hated Konoha that much?

For one thing, he remembered the incident with Kumo regarding the Hyuuga's Byakugan had greatly torn an individual apart with anger. Perhaps this youth could be persuaded? Unfortunately, Naruto, never having really met the Hyuuga, did know his name nor his face. The only thing he _did _know was that the boy was the son of the man who had been sent to Kumo as compensation.

Thankfully, this information shouldn't be too hard to come by. All it took was a little more practice with his chakra control and he could go about using a Henge to "gossip" with civilians.

-

By the end of the week, Naruto decided that he had enough control to mold his chakra to do the three Academy techniques.

A simple Henge, and he was out walking among the civilians in Konoha. The best place to gossip, he knew, was among the lonely housewives of the village, who often gathered in the marketplace to talk about who did what, who was cutest, and other such insequential nonsense.

"Hello there, ladies!" he said as he walked up to them in his disguise of a middle-aged woman.

"Hi," the women greeted back.

"Have you heard about that Hyuuga boy? They say he's a genius!"

"Really? The young boy is a genius? Where'd you hear that from?" one woman asked curiously.

"I heard some of the Hyuuga members talking about how their was a Branch member who was quite talented!"

"Oh, you must mean Neji!" the woman exclaimed. "I heard that too! You see..."

Naruto, still under a Henge, quietly slipped away, having obtained the information he needed.

The rest of the women never even noticed her disappearance.

-

'_So, the boy's name is Neji. All I have to do is befriend him, and wait for tragedy to strike._'

At the time, not being too familiar with the habits of other kids his age, he did not realize that it would be quite difficult to find and meet Neji in the first place, much less befriend him.

Therefore, he spent the rest of the afternoon wandering around the local park, where he hoped he might spot Neji. This obviously failed, so he was about to trudge back to his apartment when he noticed two Hyuuga men standing guard over a Hyuuga girl, who was playing in the sandbox all by herself.

'_Oh, right! Neji probably lives with the rest of the Hyuuga! Forgot all about their precious compound! Better shadow them,_' he thought to himself.

When the guards took the young girl away, Naruto casually followed, trying to look inconspicuous. The moment that the Hyuuga Compound was able to be seen, his eyes left the trio for a moment to stare, and when they slid back, he immediately noticed that one of the guards had disappeared.

He suddenly felt a hand on his shoulder, spinning him around.

"What the hell do you think you're doing, you little piece of shit?" the chuunin Hyuuga asked with a glare.

"I just wanted to know where the Hyuuga lived," Naruto replied softly, playing the part of a young boy very well.

The man snorted and just pushed Naruto to the ground. "We live here. Now go away and bother someone else." Walking away, he quickly rejoined the young Hyuuga heiress and his fellow guard before returning to their compound.

'_Well, at least I know where they live now,_' Naruto thought.

-

A week later, Naruto had the extreme fortune of meeting Neji on one of the training grounds that he had discovered.

'_Ohoho, this is way too easy,_' he thought to himself.

Coming out of the underbrush, he approached the five year old Hyuuga and called out a greeting. "Hey there!"

Neji, who had already seen the blond boy due to his Byakugan, nodded without looking at him. "Hi."

"You want to spar a little?" Naruto asked. He was aware that his four year old body could not really do much in a fight, much less a spar, but he still had at least technique to help him.

"You sure? Aren't you a bit young for shinobi training?"

"Well, I can ask the same of you!" the blond declared.

Neji shrugged, not interested in explaining. "Alright then, let's spar a little."

Settling into a weak stance of the Jyuuken, Neji ran at the unprepared Naruto and struck with his palm. Naruto dodged and weakly kicked Neji in the side. The weak kick, reinforced by small amounts of chakra, was enough to send the Hyuuga rolling away, a bruise quickly forming where Naruto had hit him.

He leapt to his feet and immediately rushed at Naruto again. This time, he was more cautious of the blond. His Jyuuken strikes, while weak due to his lack of experience and age, were still enough to decimate anyone his age. However, Naruto deftly avoided them, thanks to the help of the stamina training he had done earlier.

When Neji finally let his guard down, Naruto punched him in the rib, sending the other boy stumbling backwards and falling on his rear.

"You're good," Neji stated, surprised.

"Thanks, so are you!"

"Not good enough. I couldn't even hit you..."

"Well, that's just because I'm good at dodging!"

Neji nodded, and the two descended into a brief silence.

"I'm Neji," he finally said.

"Naruto," the blond replied.

"Would you like to spar with me again? I can see that training with you may be beneficial..."

"Sure!"

And thus, Naruto and Neji's "friendship" began.

-

A few months later, October 10th rolled around. Naruto knew, as had happened in his previous life, that villagers would always come and try to kill him on these days. The change this time, was that Naruto could defend himself.

Thus, as the festivities began, several drunk men gathered and decided that chasing down the demon would be a fun idea. With raucous shouts and brazen threats, the men pursued Naruto down and about several alleys, until they reached a dead end.

"You're trapped now! Can't hide from us, you foul demon!"

"Yeah, we're going to get our revenge for what you did to our loved ones, Kyuubi!"

Naruto spun around, ready to say something along the lines of "I wasn't trying to hide", when a masked ANBU dressed in pitch black clothes dropped down.

"For breaking the orders of the Sandaime Hokage, you are sentenced to death."

In that one moment before their deaths, sobriety came to their minds, right until their heads rolled off their shoulders.

The ANBU turned around, revealing that his mask depicted a weasel.

"Hi, Weasel-san!"

'_Odd. He shows no signs of a scared child, nor any recognition that five men were killed right in front of him. He is an anomaly. He must be studied._'

"Do you require any assistance?" Weasel asked.

"Nope," Naruto responded.

The ANBU nodded his head and disappeared.

Naruto calmly walked over the corpses and returned to his apartment.

-

The next day, the Sandaime sat in his office, rubbing his head, trying to soothe the growing migraine.

When Naruto had stepped out of the alley, unharmed, last night, several groups of angry civilians quickly entered the alley after the boy had left. There they found the five bodies of their fellow civilians, who they knew had entered the alley in the hopes to kill the demon.

There were immediately a whole batch of demands and petitions that the "Demon Child" be punished for the murders. However, Sarutobi had insisted that there was no proof that Naruto had done the deed himself. Of course, he had later been told by Weasel, the ANBU he had assigned to protect Naruto, that it was he that had murdered the men for breaking the law.

Sarutobi had used this new information to convince the council that there was nothing they could legally do, as the men _had _broken the law. Only Danzo and his two old teammates remained resilient against the information. Luckily, the ruling was in favor of Naruto, and the issue was dropped.

But now, Danzo had changed courses and had retaken up the demand that Naruto be put into the ANBU program to develop him into a weapon for Konoha. The demand was shot down before Danzo could even finish his argument.

This had only left the man to become angry and become a thorn in Sarutobi's side.

-

"Byakugan!" the six year old Neji cried aloud, right before striking at Naruto with his palms. His opponent continued to evade the attacks, until he had overstepped in one of his attacks, and Naruto had stuck his leg out. Neji tripped and fell to the ground, getting a face full of dirt.

"Argh!" the boy shouted in frustration. In the five months that they had sparred together, Neji had only hit Naruto once, and despite it being a full contact Jyuuken strike, Naruto had taken only a few seconds to shrug off its effects. While Neji was only a child, the attack should've been enough to cripple Naruto for at least several hours.

Neji remembered exactly what happened after that.

_Flashback_

_"Hah!"_

_With a ferocious yell of triumph, Neji landed his first strike on the younger Naruto's body. He was prepared to gloat good-naturedly, but when the blond did not collapse, he stared with his mouth open._

_"No way! I know I did it correctly," he muttered to himself. "How come you aren't falling over?"  
_

_"Oh don't worry, it's a special ability of mine."_

_"Would this 'special ability' have anything to do with that weird red chakra inside of you?"_

_"Yup! But you can't tell anyone, Neji! Promise?"_

_"Umm, ok."_

_"Good. Now let's keep going. You managed to hit me once, but can you hit me twice?"_

_End Flashback_

"Damn it Naruto! Stop moving!"

"Aww, but where would the fun be in that?" he retorted.

Naruto would never admit it, but he was actually having some fun training Neji to eventually be what he wanted him to be. His training wasn't direct, but more indirectly, where he used childish taunts and goads to force Neji to work harder and overcome his weaknesses. And it was working too.

Neji, while skilled with his Byakugan and his precision in his strikes, was still physically weak. Just like he was. And since they were only about five years of age, weights were not ideal for use. Thus, Naruto showed Neji the gravity seals that he pretended to have found somewhere, applying them to both himself and the Hyuuga. Of course, the level of the seals were adjusted to be just a tiny bit heavier than normal, considering that they were still children. Unfortunately, this was slow going, since the seals could not be used for extended amounts of time. Not even the great Kyuubi would be able to fix a five year old Naruto's muscles if the blond had decided to crank up the gravity seals.

The frustrated, but smiling, Neji continued to train and play with his good friend Naruto.

This was his only time to truly be free. While his father would've doted on him had he the chance to do so, the man's duty was to act as the clan head's bodyguard, and thus Neji's father was always busy shadowing Hiashi, the current clan head. Neji was warned many times by his father to be respectful and polite when in the company of his uncle and the main branch members, like his cousin Hinata and her recently born little sister Hanabi.

With Naruto, he could be however he wanted, and even having fun would not be frowned upon!

Unfortunately, all good things had to come to an end, so when the sun set, Neji reluctantly parted ways with his best friend Naruto and went home.

-

A/N: Merry Christmas and happy holidays everyone!


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

_One year later..._

A diplomat from Kumo came today to try to make peace with Konoha, who they were fervid enemies with. The civilians crowded the streets, eager to regain trade with another of the five great villages and to stop the pointless skirmishes that had erupted between the two countries.

However, to Neji, this meant nothing. It was close to eight at night, and he had just returned home from another day of fun and sparring with Naruto. It hadn't been more than ten minutes before he heard a shout.

Poking his head out of his room, he saw a branch member running down the hall.

"Get up! There's an emergency! All capable shinobi are to report to Hiashi-sama's office! Now!"

Immediately, two dozen men and women, all with the caged seal on their foreheads, emerged from their rooms and followed the messenger towards the main branch compound, where Hiashi's office was.

With haste, they made it there in only a few minutes.

Hiashi stood in front of his desk, hands clasped behind his back, pacing the room, while his twin brother Hizashi stood as unmoving as a rock to his right.

When everyone had assembled, Hiashi stopped his pacing and turned to those present.

"We have a situation. Someone has kidnapped my daughter, Hinata. It is crucial that you go out and find the kidnapper, for the sake of the clan," Hiashi declared tersely. "I want you to go and comb the village to find my daughter! Whoever kills the kidnapper and brings back my daughter will be excused from their duties for a year. Do you understand?"

With such a reward dangling in front of them, every single branch member vowed on their lives to do as commanded, as the reward was a chance of a lifetime.

As they left, Hiashi signaled to his brother. "Brother, I want you to alert all non-shinobi Hyuuga to use their eyes to try and find the kidnapper. He needs to be caught. At _any _cost!"

Hizashi nodded and bowed, before taking his leave.

The Hyuuga clan head sat down in his leather chair, placing his head in his hands. Suddenly, his head snapped up.

"What the fuck am I doing?" he scolded himself harshly. "I should be out there searching too!"

-

"Hokage-sama!" a man shouted as he burst through the doors of the Sandaime's office.

"What? If this has anything to do with the Hyuuga heir's disappearance, I already know about it!" the Sandaime barked.

"No, that's not it! The Kumo delegation is gone!"

"Gone?!" the elderly Hokage asked as he bolted out of his chair, his pipe falling out of his mouth. "What do you mean 'gone'?!"

"Exactly that, sir! One of the hotel employees was bringing up the dinner up to their room, but they weren't there!"

"Shit! What bad timing! First the Hyuuga heir disappears, and then the Kumo delegates...disappear..." the Hokage trailed off. "No...it can't be..."

"Sir?"

"Could it be possible that the two are related? Could the Kumo delegates perhaps have been the kidnappers...? Damn it!" Sarutobi left his office, the messenger following. "Alert the Hyuuga and all ANBU and jounin in the village to search for the Kumo delegates. I think they are the ones who have kidnapped Hiashi's daughter."

"Of course, Hokage-sama," the man said as he bowed and left.

Leaving the tower, the Hokage took to the roofs, joining the shinobi of the village in searching.

-

Dozens of Hyuuga leapt above rooftops and ran through streets, all in search of the kidnappers.

Hiashi himself joined those on the rooftops, straining his Byakugan to look for any signs of a potential kidnapper.

They were interrupted by an ANBU.

"Hiashi-sama. The Hokage suspects that the Kumo delegation is behind the kidnapping, and he wishes for you to know to be on the lookout for them."

"Very well," Hiashi nodded.

-

Neji technically was not a serving shinobi, and thus, was never offered the reward of finding Hyuuga Hinata.

He tried anyway. The two of them weren't on good terms, being from two radically different branches, but they were still family.

Dashing through the streets, he headed towards the training grounds, which would be the easiest place for an intruder to sneak out of the village from, given that it was the least guarded place.

The boy searched through four or five training grounds before he spotted a man dressed in black carrying a struggling sack over his shoulder.

He unleashed three shuriken at the man's back, hoping to incapacitate him.

Unluckily for Neji, the man _was _an experienced shinobi, and thus his instincts warned him to dodge. The shuriken went flying past, and the man turned around to see his assailant. When he saw it was just a little boy, he relaxed. However, by turning around, he unintentionally revealed his hitae-ate to the Hyuuga boy.

'_That symbol...is that Kumo?_' Neji asked himself.

"Let Hinata-sama go!" he yelled bravely.

The Kumo nin looked at Neji strangely and turned back around, ready to start on his way back towards Kumo, when he felt the presence of another man. His instincts warned him to jump, and he did so, but in the process, lost his bundle.

Hiashi caught the bundle and placed it on the ground gently before dashing at the Kumo nin with hatred in his eyes.

"You are in my field of divination! Hakke Rokujuuyonshou!" the clan head used the notorious Hyuuga technique and sealed off the Kumo nin's tenketsu points, ending with a thrust to the man's chest.

The Kumo nin fell to his knees, and blood erupted from his mouth. With a gurgle, the man fell to the ground, dead.

At that moment, Sarutobi and an entire ANBU squad appeared.

"What happened here?" the Sandaime asked tersely.

"I took care of the intruder, Hokage-sama," Hiashi replied with a bow of his head, motioning towards the corpse of the Kumo nin.

"Is he still alive?"

Hiashi shook his head.

"Ah Hiashi...you should have left him alive. We could've interrogated him that way. I fear that Kumo will demand compensation for the death of their ambassador."

"But he tried to kidnap my daughter!" Hiashi replied, the calm demeanor of the normally stoic Hyuuga almost to its breaking point.

"Yes I know, but they will try to demand it anyway, and if we were to refuse, we would set off the third Great Shinobi War..."

"...I understand. I will gladly pay the price, no matter how steep." The Hyuuga bowed before the Hokage, picked up his unconscious daughter, and beckoned towards his nephew before leaving the area.

-

_Hyuuga Main Family Compound_

Hiashi, Hizashi, and Neji were gathered in the clan head's office.

"Neji..." Hiashi started off. "Thank you. Thank you for saving my daughter."

"But I didn't do anything," Neji protested.

"You delayed the kidnapper long enough for me to arrive. And for that, I thank you."

Neji's father, standing behind Hiashi glowed with pride for his son. Neji saw the happy look on his father's face and felt a sense of satisfaction that his father was proud of him.

"For your help, I will excuse you from guard duties and your chores for a year," Hiashi stated gratefully. He then turned to his brother. "Hizashi...you have a wonderful son."

"Thank you, Hiashi-sama," the other Hyuuga said as he bowed. When he straightened, he

"You may leave now, Neji."

Hiashi waited until the young boy left before plopping down on his seat.

"My brother...do you think it was a good idea to kill that Kumo delegate?"

-

"...and then he said that I didn't have to do anymore chores for the next year! He even told my father that I was wonderful!"

The next day, Neji had immediately sought out Naruto to tell him the wonderful news.

"Nice job!" the blond congratulated his friend.

"Thanks! Now let's keep on sparring! I'm gonna spend all of my free time training, so I can make my father and Hiashi-sama proud!"

-

"Kumo demands restitution."

Those three words alone shocked Hyuuga Hiashi and the council of elders.

"What?!" came the various shouts of the elderly Hyuuga men.

"To be more specific, they demand the head of Hiashi."

The Hyuuga council burst into an uproar.

"That'll never happen!"

"We refuse to give in to Kumo's demands!"

"Quiet!" Hiashi snapped at the angry elders. "I said it before, and I'll say it again. I will gladly pay the price."

"Please, Hiashi-sama! Reconsider your words! We cannot so casually give up the secrets of the Byakugan," one of the Hyuuga men begged.

"Yes, please, Hiashi-sama!" another man piped in.

A third elder spoke. "...You have a twin, do you not? And with the caged bird seal, we could give the body of Hizashi to Kumo, ensure that the secrets of the Byakugan never be revealed, _and _satisfy their demands peacefully!"

"I won't allow it!" Hiashi stated firmly, eyes narrowing at the man who suggested it.

"Why not allow Hizashi to decide for himself?" the first Hyuuga elder asked slyly.

Growling, Hiashi conceded the right. The Hokage called a hidden ANBU to retrieve Hizashi, and the masked man nodded and disappeared at once.

The tense minute of silence was broken when the doors swung open, and a black-clad ANBU stepped in, followed by the Hyuuga council's expected guest.

"I was summoned, Hokage-sama?" the lesser twin asked.

"There's a problem." the old Hokage started. "And it is only with your...help can we solve it."

"Of course, anything."

"Kumo demands the body of Hiashi, but he is too important to just casually give away, not to mention that they could steal the secrets of his Byakugan," the elder who came up with the idea to bring in Hizashi stated.

Hizashi quickly pieced it together. "...And since I am Hiashi's twin and I have the caged bird seal, Kumo will be tricked into thinking that I am Hiashi (or at very least, accept that I am a suitable replacement for Hiashi), and the secrets will not be revealed. Am I correct?"

"Yes, quite."

"I will accept my duty."

"What?!" Hiashi burst out.

Turning to his elder twin, Hizashi told him, "I will do what I must, for both the clan and for the village." His voice was final, as if nothing would change his mind.

"But what about Neji?!"

"And what about Hinata? And Hanabi? You have kids too, so please, do not use that against me. My son will understand. It is our duty to protect the main branch," Hizashi retorted calmly.

"B-b-but..."

"Please, forgive me, my brother...I must say my goodbyes." And with that, the unlucky twin bowed his head and walked out, followed by the elder Hyuuga council.

"H-Hizashi!" Hiashi cried out, falling to his knees, after all of the Hyuuga men departed. This left him alone with Sarutobi.

The aged leader gently placed a hand on the crying clan head's shoulder. "Let us not cry for his sacrifice. Let us cheer for him. To remember him always. Do not let your tears ruin your memories," he soothed.

-

Young Neji was awoken from his peaceful slumber by an insistent hand.

"Mmm...wha?" Neji mumbled sleepily as his eyes slowly blinked open.

"Neji, my son...oh Neji..."

"Father?"

"I love you, Neji. Know that I love you."

"Love you too..." Neji replied, letting loose a giant yawn.

"I have to go now. I'm sorry I won't be there to see you graduate, to be there with you when you make your first kill, to see you when you get married, to see you when your wife has your first child..."

"Mm? Father, are you going somewhere?"

"...Yes you could say that. I am, in fact, not going to be seeing you for quite a long time."

By now, Neji was awake. "What?! Why father?"

Hizashi paused to contemplate whether he should tell his son the truth or not. He soon made his decision. "It's my duty, Neji," he finally elaborated softly, stroking the young boy's long black hair.

"Duty? What do you mean? Are you going on an escort mission with Hiashi-sama?"

Neji's father shook his head. "No, Neji...you understand that we, as members of the branch family, must sometimes sacrifice everything we have to protect members of the main family, right?" he asked tentatively.

"I understand father, but what does this have to do-"

Hizashi cut off his son by throwing his arms around the small boy, hugging him close to his body. "Sometimes, that sacrifice means giving our life for the clan," he ended softly.

"W-what?! Your life?"

"Yes. You remember how bravely you helped Hiashi-sama rescue your cousin Hinata, and how Hiashi-sama killed the kidnapper?"

Neji nodded slowly.

"Kumo, the man's village, wants revenge for his death, and demand the head of your uncle."

"That doesn't explain why _you _have to die!" Neji cried, tears trickling down his face.

"The elders can not risk sending Hiashi, as they must protect the secrets of the Byakugan. There's also the fact that Hiashi doesn't have the seal on his forehead."

"So it all comes down to the see, father?" the boy asked bitterly.

"I'm afraid so. It is fate that has dealt us such a cruel hand. But you must remember, your fate can be changed. Your fate is in _your _hands, not anyone else's. Remember that, my son, and you will succeed. Go forth, and make me proud!"

"Hai, father!"

Hizashi gave one last hug to his son before knocking the boy out with a light chop to the neck. He just couldn't bear to watch his son cry anymore.

And with that, Hyuuga Hizashi, noble father and brave sacrifice, left his son's room, ready to face his destiny.

-

_Two years later..._

With his father's death, Neji's feelings for Konoha declined. Where once he viewed the village as a place he called home, he now thought of it as a gathering place for the corrupt and weak, all seeking to blame their problems on someone else. While his relationships with other people deteriorated, his friendship with Naruto stood strong. It was only with Naruto's help that he didn't lose his sanity to his anger and hatred. It was only with Naruto's help that he grew strong. With such a show of loyalty from Naruto, Neji could not help but reciprocate those feelings. He knew that if he had to pick between Naruto or Konoha, Naruto would win out without a thought.

"Neji."

"Hello, Naruto."

The blond, finally seeing his "work" come to fruition, had started to lessen his mask of childishness, so as to show Neji that he was "growing up" alongside the Hyuuga.

"So, how was your first day at the academy?" Neji asked.

"Boring. Obviously," Naruto responded with a yawn.

"Spar?" Neji offered.

"Sure," the blond answered, immediately rolling to the side to avoid Neji's sudden palm strike. The Hyuuga spun to follow Naruto, unleashing a combination of palm strikes, finger jabs, and snap kicks, all of which Naruto deflected or dodged.

Even after all this time, Neji could still never win in a spar against Naruto. Determined to at least win once, Neji had studied extremely hard to gain the title of genius, developing his own variation of the Jyuuken. And while developing a new style was not too impressive of a feat, the fact that the style incorporated strikes with the feet, mixed with the Jyuuken (which was supposed to be "impossible", seeing as how releasing chakra through the knee or feet into an opponent's tenketsu points were considered to be unable to be done) and Goken, made this style extremely dangerous to all of its opponents.

Since Naruto had helped Neji to develop it (help, as in being Neji's training dummy), he also knew its strengths and weaknesses, and could tell when Neji's strike was meant to hurt his internal organs or his outer body.

Letting Neji's fist pass by his head, Naruto headbutted the black-haired boy in the stomach, and followed it up by catching Neji's oncoming kick with his left hand before using his right palm to push the Hyuuga into the thick trunk of a tree.

Immediately, Neji burst into a cloud of smoke.

"Using my own technique against me? Shame on you, Neji," Naruto chuckled. He suddenly burst into smoke too.

From behind the spot where Naruto had been standing moments earlier, Neji commented, "You taught me the Kage Bunshin. As a shinobi, it would be foolish of me to not use everything I can to win. And you seem to forget. I have the Byakugan!"

Spinning around, he quickly threw two kunai at the bush that his friend was hiding in. Before the kunai could even reach the bush, Naruto had leapt out, grabbed them, and flung them back.

At that moment, Neji smirked.

He spun quickly, releasing a short burst of chakra, which deflected the kunai. Immediately after, he dropped to the ground.

"You finally managed to do the Kaiten!" Naruto complimented, impressed.

"Yes, but I can only hold it for a second, and even then, it's only strong enough to deflect flying projectiles. If you had charged at me while I was spinning, you would've broken right through."

"It's still amazing progress though," Naruto remarked. "Now, let's stop here."

"Alright," Neji agreed, grabbing Naruto's outstretched hand and pulling himself up.

"I'll see you later," Naruto waved goodbye.

It wasn't much longer until the blond academy student was sitting in a booth in a dango restaurant. He didn't even have a chance to order when a purple blob leapt on him.

"Anko," Naruto greeted calmly.

"Yo! Buying me dango? I feel so special!" she pretended to woo.

The other patrons of the restaurant glared at the demon kid and the snake whore, but a glance from the Anko sent them looking away.

"I hate them. I can't wait until we kill them. Slaughter them! Maim them!"

"Yes, but you must have patience, Anko, patience."

Naruto had first met Anko a year ago, when he was waiting outside the Hokage's office. He heard a woman's furious scream, and started to listen in, seeing as how the voice was high enough to reach through the door.

The woman had been shouting about how it was unfair that she was being refused a promotion from tokubetsu jounin to a regular jounin. She was loyal. She was competent. Why was she not deserving? Her answer was simple. She was tainted by Orochimaru. Being granted the status of jounin would give her access to village secrets that, if in the wrong hands, could destroy Konoha. And of course, since she was once an apprentice of Orochimaru, she could not be trusted enough to allowed such access.

When not even the Hokage could overturn their decision, Anko had stomped outside, only to be stopped by the six year old blond.

"Do you want to kill them? Get revenge?"

"Yes!" she screamed.

Had she not been swimming in anger, she would've questioned why such a small boy was asking her a question like that.

With a simple wave of the hand, Naruto beckoned her out to an obscure and out-of-the-way training ground, where he quickly taunted her into attacking him. It wasn't too long before she was incapacitated. With her bloodlust gone, she soon realized the extent of Naruto's powers. He had so easily beaten her!

On Naruto's part, it seemed that his training had been beneficial. While he wasn't strong enough to fight a jounin in terms of power or speed, he was definitely able to outsmart just about any opponent. And that's exactly what he did. He manipulated an anger-filled woman into attacking him, so that he could show her just how he could grant her wish.

"If you have faith and patience in me, you will get what you desire. Faith. And patience," he had whispered in her ear.

Looking up at the blond (she was on the ground at that moment), she received an image of a god. This boy had talents beyond that which a normal person could comprehend! Being loyal to _him _would have its rewards!

And now, in the present, she was glad that she had sworn loyalty to him all those months ago. She had received all kinds of knowledge from him. Knowledge on terrible and destructive techniques, knowledge on forbidden and dark rituals (none of which she was willing to attempt), and other such things. She had not once questioned where he had received such knowledge, and didn't really care where he got it from either. As long as she was by his side, she would prosper!

"Ugh...patience. I hate waiting! You know that!" Anko declared.

"Yes, I do know that," Naruto responded, sipping his hot cup of tea. "I still have things to learn here and people to recruit."

"Speaking of which, you never did tell me who else you want to join you."

"It's a secret, Anko. Every good shinobi must have their secrets."

"Fine," she pouted. Grabbing the last stick of dango, she quickly ate it and threw the stick at one of the glaring civilians, before skipping out of the establishment.

When Naruto was given the bill, he took one look at it before crumpling it up. His killer intent was just potent enough to scare the hell out of the civilian. "Give me such unreasonable prices again, and you won't live to regret it," he whispered harshly.

The waiter whimpered before hurrying back to get a proper bill. Handing this new one to Naruto, the blond casually paid for the meal.

"There. Now, that wasn't so hard was it?"

-

A/N: Wow, the scene with Hizashi and Neji took me forever to write...


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4

Sarutobi Hiruzen sighed. He seemed to be doing a lot of that these days. The cause of his troubles usually came in the form of young Uzumaki Naruto. When the boy was younger, he played simple pranks. He tripped people, threw rocks at people, and even pulled his pants down and bent over, showing his small little ass to angry civilians. Youth these days! Now, the boy went from childish pranks to dangerous threats.

Why, in the past week alone, he received over twenty complaints about the blond!

He was brought out of his internal musing by a sharp knock on the door.

"Come in," he called.

The door swung open, and Naruto walked in.

"Sit," he gestured at the comfy chair in front of his oak desk.

When the blond did as asked, Sarutobi began to speak.

"Do you know why you've been called here, Naruto-kun?"

"Nope," he answered honestly.

"I've been receiving complaints about you. The council is trying to kick you out of the academy, and some even call for your exile! Can't you stop threatening the civilians?"

"Sure."

"I _mean _it, Naruto. You say that all the time, but you never actually listen!"

"Whatever."

"I'm serious. If this continues...I'll have to take you out of the academy," the old man threatened. Of course, he knew he would never follow through on the threat, but hey, Naruto didn't know that.

For Naruto, being kicked out of the academy did not really matter to his plans. In fact, it might make them even easier!

"...Fine! Take me out!" he shouted in reply, crossing his arms over his chest in a childish pout.

Sarutobi, for his part, was stumped. He honestly expected the threat to work, since all Naruto could do back when he was younger was yell about being Hokage.

Backing down, the elderly Hokage just shook his head. He should've known that this would happen. Naruto was much too stubborn to simply conform against his wishes.

"How about this?" the older man ventured. "I'll treat you to an all-you-can-eat ramen buffet if you stop."

"...Ok."

"I'm not kicking you out of the academy though. You'll still have to go."

'_Well, that was too easy,_' Sarutobi mused to himself.

Of course, what the Sandaime didn't know was that Naruto didn't plan on keeping that promise. He only agreed since it was free food.

"Alright, so meet me back here at six, and we'll go get your all-you-can-eat ramen buffet, ok?"

Naruto nodded once and left the office.

'_...Great. Now I'm supposed to reprimand Anko. My day just goes from bad to worse._'

-

"It's been...what, three or four years, since we met, eh Weasel-san?" Naruto seemingly asked himself.

From his right, the air distorted before revealing a masked ANBU. "It's been three years and ten months," the short elite corrected.

"Whatever. Anyway, after all this time, you're still stuck acting as a bodyguard for me? Don't you feel ashamed at your lack of promotion?"

"A shinobi is a tool. A tool must obey its master, and my orders are to protect you. And besides, I find this job quite...relaxing."

"Relaxing, hm? How is that?"

"The only people I must protect you from are drunk civilians and the occasional chuunin or jounin. No one that I can not handle. I don't have to leave the village, so I can visit my brother whenever I feel like it, and there aren't any orders to kill innocent people."

"But aren't civilians innocent people?"

"Only if they do not break the law, or go against my orders."

"I see. Well, I'm off to lunch. Want to join me?"

Weasel paused for a moment. "Sure."

-

The next day, something interesting happened at the academy. The sensei, Iruka, separated students into pairs and called each pair one by one to spar with each other, so that he could accurately measure where they stood in terms of power, speed, and ability. Since he separated by names, Uchiha Sasuke and Uzumaki Naruto were, of course, put together.

Sasuke, although not arrogant despite being from a mighty clan, was confident of his skills.

When the teacher told the two to begin sparring, Sasuke settled into the Uchiha taijutsu stance and waited for Naruto to settle into his own stance.

By the time Naruto did so, Sasuke was already running towards the blond, intent on showing the instructors that he was just as good as his brother was.

He jabbed with his left hand, released a hook with his right, and followed up with a quick leg sweep. Unfortunately for him, nothing hit his opponent.

On Naruto's part, he didn't really want to reveal any skills that might show that he knew more than he was supposed to, so he stuck to simply evading and giving light punches. Avoiding the youngest Uchiha's simple and straightforward attacks were nothing for him.

Sasuke, quickly feeling the signs of impatience, took two deep breaths to calm down, like his brother had taught him.

After he finished exhaling, he felt slightly better. Again, he rushed in first, although his attacks were much more wary, as if to measure the extent of Naruto's skills.

The blond boy pushed away Sasuke's arm as it neared his head, and brought his other hand up to block the incoming knee. With his hands on two of Sasuke's appendages, he flipped the boy up, eliciting a cry of surprise.

With a loud thump, the raven-haired Uchiha fell to the ground in a heap. His head bounced off the dirt ground, further aggravating him.

"Alright, alright!" Iruka cried. "You guys can stop!" Marking down a few things on his clipboard, he then beckoned Mizuki over to look at Sasuke while he oversaw the spar of the last two students.

-

Naruto's life soon fell into a simple schedule. After getting up, he'd go to the academy for a few hours, leave to get lunch, occasionally with Weasel, return to the academy for another few hours. When that was over, he would usually meet up with Neji to spar and talk, and when dinner time came around, he usually met up with Anko at the dango restaurant. Personal training time was squeezed in at random times.

On the second week, the class started to go in depth about the other villages. Thursday was about Suna.

"Suna is our neighbor to the southwest. They are located in Kaze no Kuni (Wind Country), and they are surrounded, as their name suggests, by sand. In recent years..."

That was about all Naruto heard for half of the lecture. However, the mention of puppetry made him start paying attention again.

"Suna is famous for producing skilled users of puppetry. The basics of this field is simply forming a line made of chakra and connecting it to a puppet's joints, so that the puppet can move. Not much is known beyond that, since Suna likes to hoard any and all information about this art. The most famous puppeteer to date is Akasuna no Sasori, became a missing-nin when the people found out that he started to experiment with hitokugutsu (human puppets). Investigators found notes on this process after Sasori had fled, which involved some things too gruesome to say. However, the benefits of human puppets, which Sasori unknowingly discovered, were just too great. With a human puppet, the puppeteer could use the techniques that their unwilling puppets themselves could use before they died. Therefore, even with a great warrior's death, you could essentially bring him back to life to fight for you again."

'_Puppetry, huh?_ _It's been a while since I thought about that...I wonder if I should try my hand in that? I remember there was someone who taught me the basics, and it wasn't that hard. I mean, the chakra strings were pretty easy to make. It's just making enough to connect them to a puppet's joints were a bit hard, and there's the fact that using puppets efficiently required you to only need one hand to control a single puppet. Now doing _that _was pretty damn hard. It was fun though...Not to mention, if I do take up puppetry, I could make lots of fun puppets...That settles it. I'm definitely gonna go and see if I can make the chakra strings again._'

When class ended, Naruto quickly left, in the hopes that he would have some time to practice the techniques that he had learned long ago.

Making it to his and Neji's normal field, he sat down on one of the various tree stumps that the two had inadvertently created and closed his eyes. Reaching inside of himself, he could feel the vast power of the Kyuubi, just sitting there, waiting to be used. However, he didn't need it.

Finding his own natural well of chakra, he dipped in and pulled some out, channeling it to the fingers in his left hand. Small vestiges of blue chakra could be seen, before they completely died out, causing Naruto to frown. He tried once more, and this time, he managed to extend the chakra strings out of his finger and attach them to a sizeable rock on the ground. With a grunt, he jerked his left hand back, causing the rock to be pulled along. His eyes suddenly widened, as he realized his mistake. By jerking his hand back, he forced the rock to come soaring right at him!

He cursed loudly and rolled to the side from his meditative pose, watching as the rock smashed into the tree behind him.

A slow clapping sound reached his ears. "Well, now, wasn't that a genius move?"

Annoyed, Naruto used the chakra strings to connect to the rock once more, and this time flung it at the newcomer.

The newcomer silently ducked underneath the projectile, letting it pass over him harmlessly,

"Shut up, Neji."

"So what was that?"

"We were learning about Suna and their puppeteers, and it sounded interesting, so I gave it a try."

Neji's jaw actually fell at the simple revelation, something that was extremely out of character for him. "Chakra strings? Suna is known to hide their techniques! How'd you learn how to do it?"

"It just came to me," Naruto replied carefully. His answer wasn't the truth, but he wasn't lying either.

Shaking his head, Neji said, "Whatever. I'm not even gonna ask anymore."

-

That night, in Naruto's dreams, came the towering and fearsome image of the legendary Kyuubi.

"Ah, so today is the day..." he said to himself in realization.

**Mortal human...I see that you have done well to spread my name across the countries...**

"Yes, I have. Unfortunately, I have been sent back into time."

**You weren't sent back in time.**

"Hm? What do you mean, Kyuubi-sama?"

The red-furred demon snorted in contempt. **Your soul from your original body was kicked out, and sent to the soul of this body. Basically, you have traveled to another world. This means that you might find some differences between the world you knew and the world you live in now. **

"I traveled...worlds?"

**Yes. Would you like me to repeat it a little slower? **the Kyuubi taunted.

"Since you know about my previous life, can I ask if you are going to make me the same deal?"

The demon seemed to ponder that question for a minute. **...No. We already know what you're going to be like and how strong you will be if I gave you full access to my powers. I want to see how strong you will turn out to be without _any _access. Of course, you'll still receive everything I have by the time you have turned to the age of fourteen, but you won't get my chakra without a good fight until then. If anything, it'll provide me with some amusement, something I seem to lack these days.  
**

Well. That was a startling development. But no matter. Naruto wasn't afraid. It was a good thing he decided to head down the branch of puppetry. as otherwise, reaching his previous full power would've been quite difficult. That's not to say he wouldn't stop trying to go as far as he could down his previous path, though.

**Now. Begone!**

-

In the blink of an eye, two years had quickly gone by.

The nine year old Naruto had not been idle during these crucial years. He had managed to recreate everything there was about puppetry with no real help or information. And while he had not yet started to create human puppets, his current wooden one was strong enough to last against a fight with an ANBU. The puppet itself was bland and unappealing, sealed inside a tattoo that Naruto had painfully inscribed unto himself. The blond had named it Shinobu (Endure), after its amazing ability to outlast and wear down enemies. The wooden puppet looked like a basic training dummy (and in fact, Naruto had fashioned Shinobu after one), only different in the fact that it concealed an assortment of weapons.

Shinobu was loaded with things like shuriken, kunai, and senbon, which was perfect for annoying and wearing down enemy shinobi, since any competent nin could easily deflect or avoid such projectiles. Unfortunately for Naruto, the projectiles were not poisonous or special in anyway, since he could not procure anything but these specific ones. Inside the left arm of the puppet were the launchers, which would, with the use of a finger, unleash his flying projectiles upon unsuspecting enemies.

Another special trait of Shinobu was the right arm. The fingers on the hand would push together to form something like a spiked mace, and the arm would disconnect at the elbow, allowing Naruto to make Shinobu swing the deadly flail like a lasso. While admittedly, it was better as a weapon to crush your enemies with, Naruto designed it in the idea that he could use it to capture the enemy. The spikes were an added bonus that would make escaping that much more difficult.

The final unique thing about Shinobu was its ability to withstand attacks, from which its name was derived from. Using normal wood, Naruto then lined it with chakra absorbing pads, along with an iron core, making three thick layers for opponents to try to break through. The wooden layer acted as a defense against standard taijutsu and ninjutsu attacks (but not Katon techniques). The pads would absorb any chakra-infused punches or kicks, making their attacks damage only the first layer, which would block it anyway. It also would absorb any chakra used in a ninjutsu if said technique managed to break its way past the wood. The third layer, which was more of a core than a layer, was a decent sheet of malleable metal forced into the proper shape. It basically reinforced the first two layers and acted as the second layer for the arms, the legs, and the head. This is because as long as the body was intact (meaning it needed the best defense), Naruto believed he could rebuild the puppet if it lost a limb. Sure it would be annoying as hell having to get all those shuriken, kunai, and senbon, and it would be irritating to have to rebuild the flail-arm, but it was the perfect trade-off between metal and wood. If he were to use too much metal in the puppet, it would lose mobility, since it would be too heavy, and the joints would not function properly. Too little metal, and the wood would be easily destroyed, thus becoming more of a nuisance than a boon.

Compared to a real puppeteer like those that Suna produces, the puppet would be far less efficient, but against any organic enemies, Naruto believed that Shinobu would be useful to have.

Neji, his best friend, quickly completed and mastered his style, which he named the Tsuku no Mai (Dance of Pain), since his moves caused considerable pain and damage to both the external body and the internal organs, something the Hyuuga had found out during a mission. With his taijutsu far above those his level, he had moved on to study a little ninjutsu, thereby enlarging his arsenal from the standard three techniques and the Hyuuga techniques to include a variety of lower level Suiton jutsus like the Mizu Bunshin and the Kirigakure. While Neji was in fact only eleven years old (a year early from graduating), he had been lauded as a genius, and thus, graduated before the normal age. Fortunately (or unfortunately, depending on how you looked at it), his two teammates were just two older genin, nothing special, so his status was praised about even more. With all this praise about being a genius, despite coming from the branch house of the Hyuuga, Neji's arrogance grew quite quickly, only to be tempered during his bouts with Naruto, who would systematically defeat him. The worst part, for Neji, was that sometimes, Naruto didn't even need to move. All he needed to do was unleash Shinobu, who would act as the perfect defense against Neji.

-

"Mizu Bunshin!"

Three clones appeared from the puddle of water that was spilled on the ground from a now empty water bottle.

The three simultaneously leapt forward, aiming to strike Shinobu in the joints with powerful Goken attacks, thus disabling it, but the nimble puppet bent itself in inhuman ways to avoid the clones.

Growling, Neji jumped down from the branches and joined his clones in trying to strike at least one of the joints. Naruto, the smirking bastard, stood with his arms crossed over his chest behind Shinobu, fingers twitching madly as he controlled the puppet.

Neji finally achieved success when he managed to tap Shinobu's left leg. With no chakra string now connecting to it, the puppet collapsed, not being able to stand properly.

Grinning at his achievement, the three clones and the original all leapt around the puppet, surrounding Naruto in a square-shaped formation.

"Suiton: Teppoudama!"

The four spat four bullets of water at Naruto, only to blink in surprise when Naruto jumped straight up, completely avoiding their attacks. The bullets smacked the opposing Neji's, causing all four Neji's to dispel.

"They're all clones?"

At the peak of his jump, Naruto was suddenly beset by the real Neji, who forced his hands through a series of hand seals.

"Suiton: Mizurappa!" Neji unleashed a powerful stream of water at Naruto, smashing into him and suddenly changing his rising ascent to a falling descent.

Just as Naruto hit the ground, he burst into a cloud of smoke, obscuring Neji's view of him.

"Damn, he switched with a clone!" Neji cursed, still in the air.

It was at that moment that Naruto's puppet, Shinobu appeared on the ground. Its arm was already disconnected, but the spikes weren't formed, since this was just a friendly spar. Swinging the right arm around twice, the puppet then let it loose, sending it right at Neji. Having no time to react, Neji was caught by the puppet's hand, and jerked towards Shinobu, who caught him in a bear hug.

"You lose...again," Naruto stated.

Struggling for a moment, Neji then went limp, signaling that he forfeited. He was immediately released by Naruto.

Reaching for their packed bentos, the two found a spot of shade under a tree where they could eat their meal.

The only sounds they made were the sounds that came with eating. When they finished, Naruto got up and beckoned Neji to follow him.

Obediently, the Hyuuga did so, and the two started to dash through the forests and eventually the streets of Konoha.

It wasn't long before they reached their destination, which happened to be the top of the Yondaime's head on the Hokage Monument.

"You know how we've always talked about revenge on Konoha? For everything they've done?" Naruto asked.

Neji nodded, unsure where this was heading.

"Our revenge starts in a week. There," he pointed towards the southeast, where a large city could be seen.

Sparing a glance at his friend, Neji wondered, "How does our revenge have to do with that city?"

"Our revenge has always been to destroy Konoha, right?" When Neji nodded again, he continued. "But what happens once Konoha is destroyed? We just...move on with our lives? I don't see that happening, unfortunately. We must first establish ourselves somewhere else, so that we may gather allies, build our forces, and overwhelm Konoha when the time comes! Well, the first step is to establish ourselves somewhere else and to gather allies. I luckily already have one more ally to call upon at this moment. Anyway, in just seven days, we will meet up there. You will be the first missing nin at the rank of genin, and I will be the first missing nin to come from the 'rank' of academy student,' Naruto chuckled. His laughter was dark and menacing, a foreshadow of things to come...

The two fell into a brief silence, staring out at the wonder that being on top of the Yondaime's head provided them with.

"You know how you've always wondered about what my dream was?" Naruto asked, breaking the quiet.

"Yes..."

"It's to conquer all of the villages."

Neji's eyes flickered over to Naruto again. "All?"

"Yes. _All._"

"Why?" Neji questioned.

"You really wanna know? It's because I think world domination sounds fun. It's always been something I've wanted to do."

Neji raised an eyebrow at his friend's nonchalant way of telling his dream. "Regardless, Naruto...you are my friend. My best friend. I will follow you no matter where you take me, and I will help you achieve your dream. I promise you that."

-

A/N: Wow when I reread the scene with Naruto and Neji, I thought it sounded a bit gay. So...I feel I have to say. NO FUCKING YAOI. NONE WHATSOEVER!

Oh, and I got several reviews asking me to include a bunch of people in Naruto's group. Sorry, but that's not happening. And besides, harems are cool and all, but making EVERY single girl to ever make an appearance in the anime (most of whom I don't even know, since the anime sucks) join Naruto's harem is just a little overboard. And I'm not even sure if I'm making a harem in the first place...


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 5

Several days later, Naruto and Anko met up in their usual spot: the dango restaurant. Despite the owner not being a big fan of the two, he couldn't help but admit that they brought in big profits, so he would usually ignore their antics.

"It's almost time," Naruto said as a greeting to Anko when she plopped down in her seat.

Anko's eyes widened just a fraction, before a large grin appeared on her face.

Just as she was about to say something, Naruto interrupted her.

"But we aren't going to leave Konoha's citizens with 'presents', Anko. Not yet."

"Why not?!" she hissed angrily.

"I told you before, and I'll tell you again. _Patience!_" Naruto replied harshly.

At that moment, where Naruto's anger shown through, Anko saw once more the reason why she decided to join Naruto. Naruto's young boyish frame seemed to flicker for a moment, only to be replaced by the dark god that she had seen three years ago when they had met. Unsurprisingly, she immediately stopped arguing.

"Yes, Naruto-sama."

The blond blinked. That was unexpected. He didn't expect her to act all demure like that.

"Listen, Anko. I know you want your revenge. I know others who do too. But now is not the time. You remember what I told you three years ago? How I had things to learn and people to recruit? Well, I'm mostly done with those two things here in Konoha. But, that doesn't make us strong enough to take on the whole village. Information is power, and we currently don't have enough of it."

"Why are we leaving so quickly then? Don't get me wrong, I _do _want to leave soon, but wouldn't gathering information on future enemies be a better idea?" Anko asked.

"I'm not worried about the weaklings here. You already know many of the jounin and chuunin here, no? And I, as an academy student, know all of the future genin. None of them are of any particular interest. All they have are their respective clan techniques. Further information on them would be pointless," Naruto waved his hand flippantly.

"I see," Anko nodded. "I understand what you mean now. I may not like it, but I get it..."

"Good. Now, in one week's time, we will be meeting at Otafuku Gai, the city to the southeast. Go sometime during the night, so that you will not be seen, and so that you won't be noticed as missing until at least the following morning. This way, even if you manage to be spotted, you can use the excuse that you are leaving for a long term mission."

"We're not going at the same time?" Anko asked.

"No. That might raise suspicion, since I must call on whom I have coming with me."

"How many exactly are coming?" she wondered.

"If all goes well, two more besides you."

"Two, that's it?"

"They have the potential and the hatred to be great. No one else here is worthy of my attention."

Their conversation soon came to a close.

-

The night of Naruto's departure soon came. Using the shadows of the night, the blond slinked his way around the streets of Konoha, carefully heading towards the gate.

Suddenly, he stopped and straightened up.

"Weasel-san?" he asked with an unseen smirk.

"And where are _you _going, Naruto-kun?" came the soft reply.

"Out, of course."

"I see."

Naruto finally turned his head towards his protector. Noticing a dark stain on the ANBU's cloak, he wondered out loud, "Is that blood I see?"

Weasel looked down at his own cloak. "I guess it is."

"How'd you get that there?"

"Oh, you'll find out about it eventually. Now, I must ask, shouldn't you be at home, Naruto-kun?"

"Nah, I'm leaving Konoha."

"Is that so? How odd it is that fate would bring us together like this," he mused. "Anyway, where do you plan on going?"

The younger boy shrugged. "Places."

"Well, since I'm so used to being your bodyguard, why don't I go with you?"

"Sure, Weasel-san."

Unknown to Naruto, Weasel had ulterior motives to accompanying Naruto.

-

Flashback

"Welcome back, Weasel."

Weasel bowed. "Thank you, Hokage-sama."

"I need you for another mission. One of great importance."

"Yes?"

"You understand…about Uzumaki Naruto's…condition, yes? Well, there have been many attempts to end Naruto's life, and there are not many I can trust with keeping him safe. I would like to choose you as his protector. His _hidden _protector. I just want you to whatever you have to do to keep him safe. If several villagers get a bit…uncontrolled, you have permission to do what you must. Do you understand?"

"Of course, Hokage-sama. As you command," the young ANBU replied, bowing before taking his leave.

End Flashback

-

From that day on, he had kept Naruto safe, even from his own family members. He had even become fond of the young blond. After seeing Naruto leaving the village, despite becoming a missing nin, he thought he could continue his mission of protecting Naruto by going with him. It was a basic example of killing two birds with a stone.

Removing his mask, Weasel revealed his face to Naruto. "You can call me Itachi now." With a kunai that appeared from his sleeve, Itachi slashed the Konoha symbol before replacing it back around his forehead. "Come. Let us be off now."

-

Unknown to the two, they were spotted by a lone jounin, who had arrived in the area on his way home. When he had spotted the two talking, he thought it suspicious and tried to eavesdrop. Upon Itachi and Naruto's departure, the crouched man, ready to report to his superior, suddenly stiffened, and his back arched.

A glowing symbol appeared on his forehead, and just as suddenly, it disappeared, returning him to normal.

'_I must inform Sasori-sama of this immediately._'

-

On their way to Otafuku Gai, they met up with Anko, who, by chance, happened to leave a little while earlier than the other two.

After greeting Naruto, Anko's eyes had turned to Itachi, widening in surprise.

"Whoa holy shit! It's that prodigal Uchiha kid!"

"My name is Itachi," was the curt reply.

Addressing the youngest of the trio, she said, "I didn't think you'd convince _this _kid to come along!"

"I am not a 'kid'. I am fourteen," Itachi stated in what could've passed for an indignant tone.

"I'm nineteen. You're fourteen. To me, you're still a kid," she teased.

Itachi was about to reply to that when Naruto spoke up. "Stop your bickering, _children_. Let's just focus on getting to Otafuku Gai. I'm still waiting for someone else."

-

"…So, where to now?" Anko asked curiously.

After meeting up with Neji and getting out of the city of entertainment, they were headed east. By this time, it was close to five in the morning. Staying too close to Konoha so soon after their defection was not a good idea.

"We need to find a place of operations. I've heard that Wave is pretty empty right now. There's no sense of law or order there, and their economy is so bad that they don't have the money to do anything. Finding a place to stay shouldn't be too hard."

"If we're looking for a headquarters, wouldn't it be ideal to get a big cave, or some place hidden?"

Turning a baleful look onto Anko, he asked, "Do you _want _to live in a cave? Besides, there's supposed to be some kind of millionaire businessman that has his eyes on Wave. I think he's built a whole palace somewhere in the area. We'll go search for him. See if he's interested in handing his company over to us, peacefully."

"And if he insists on resisting?" Itachi asked.

"Then his life is forfeit."

That ended the conversation.

The quartet continued to run, dashing past the natural inhabitants of the forests that spread all throughout Fire Country.

_Crack!_

Immediately, the group of four stiffened.

A black haired girl of seven years of age appeared from between a pair of thick trees, panting heavily.

They stared down at her with caution from their perch in the branches higher up.

Not even noticing that they were there, the girl suddenly turned around and stomped her foot down.

A small dragon made of earth rose from the ground and disappeared between the two trees that she had just appeared from.

Cries of surprise filled the air, but no shouts of pain came.

Three more figures appeared from the same place the girl had come from.

"Leave me alone!" the girl screamed.

"We cannot do that. You belong to the Tsuchikage! You're lucky that he hasn't given us the order to execute you for treason, you little bitch!" the first man replied angrily. From his words, the four people from Konoha deduced that they were Iwa nin.

"Quiet!" the second individual hissed. "We're in Konoha territory here right now! If we get caught, this could be looked at as a declaration of war, and Tsuchikage-sama would definitely have our heads for this!"

"Stop your bitching, you fool!" the first returned. "It's around six in the morning. Those spoiled Konoha nin will all be in their comfy beds at this time. Not to mention, they're all a bunch of sissies! If they catch us, they wouldn't declare war. Especially with the loss of that fucking Yondaime! They'd just try and 'negotiate' for peace! And besides, we had to track her halfway across Fire Country! I refuse to return home without the girl."

"Hah!" the girl shouted while the first two Iwa nin argued. With a kick, clumps of earth rose from the ground and shot at her enemies. While they weren't big enough to kill, the pieces of earth were large enough to get their attention.

"Ow, fuck!" the first nin cursed. "You know what? Forget this shit! He said that she had to be brought back alive, not that she had to be brought back in good shape."

Plunging his hand into the ground, he pulled a hardened spear from it. The second man followed suit by creating an axe out of the dirt. The third man, however, stayed back to watch.

"Hyaah!" the first man shouted, stabbing his spear forwards at the girl.

Fully expecting her to be killed, the four in the trees above were thus surprised when she stomped the ground with her feet, and pillars of earth rose up. The Iwa nin's spear smashed the pillars and continued on.

Taking a small leap back, the girl once more slammed her foot into the ground, creating more pillars. However, this time, the pillars came from under the spear, not in front, so that the Iwa nin's weapon was smashed into pieces almost immediately.

Undeterred, the man just created another one, and this time attacked with his comrade, the second Iwa nin.

With several fierce combos, the young girl could do nothing but shield herself. Flicking her hands upwards, she created a thick ball of earth that fought off the battering from her enemies.

After a minute, the third man, quiet until now, spoke up. "Move, you idiots. I'll deal with this."

Slowly making his way over, he then plunged his hands into the girl's ball of earth, eliciting a muffled cry of surprise from within.

Closing his eyes, he showed the perfect image of concentration. With a grunt, he overpowered the girl's chakra and subjugated the earth to his control, before forcing the earth to disperse.

With the dispersing of the earth, the girl became exposed, and her eyes showed fear.

Up above, Naruto signaled for them to drop down and help the girl.

Itachi showed no emotion to the younger boy's "command", while Anko grinned savagely. Neji just sighed.

With a soft plop, the quartet landed among the three Iwa nin.

Almost immediately, Anko's snakes burst out from her sleeves, trapping the first man in her grasp.

Itachi, pulling out his tanto from his days in the ANBU, leapt towards the man with the axe and engaged in combat, while the third enemy nin stayed behind.

Seeing the third man begin to weave a series of genjutsu, Neji shouted out the warning to his comrades before throwing a combination of kunai and shuriken at him, distracting the shinobi from completing whatever he was trying to do.

Annoyed, the third Iwa nin returned fire with his own projectiles, following it up with a quick dash towards the Hyuuga boy. As he ran, a shield made of granite rock formed on his arm. Using it as a battering ram, he smashed into Neji and sent the boy flying.

Just as Neji was about to smash into a particularly thick tree trunk, the earth below him rose up and caught him, softening the blow considerably. Muttering a thanks to the still unnamed girl, he got back up quickly and readied himself in his Tsuku no Mai stance, staring down his foe with fierce determination.

"Huh, a kid pretending he knows how to fight. Is this how far the strength of Konoha has fallen?" Neji's foe taunted.

Utilizing a quick snap kick, Neji followed his first attack with two jabs, both of which were deflected, and a knee to the stomach, which was stopped with a palm.

"Not bad, but not good enough."

The nin threw his shield like a boomerang, causing Neji to bend back to avoid it. Just as he sprung back up, he heard a sickening slash of kunai against skin. His eyes focused on Itachi, who was standing behind Neji's opponent with a kunai in his hand, blood splattered on his face.

"T-thanks," the boy said shakily.

Looking around, he realized that the other two nin were long dead, and that Naruto was speaking to the young girl.

"You have my thanks for the help," the girl stated stiffly, bowing slightly to the blue-eyed blond.

"No problem. Why were they so intent on capturing you?" Naruto asked curiously.

"Didn't you hear?" she replied bitterly. "I'm the Tsuchikage's weapon. Out of ten or so other children, I was the only one to survive being implanted with a bloodline, and as you probably noticed, my bloodline gives me control over the earth, so I can do Doton jutsu without any handseals."

Nodding in faux sympathy, he asked, "So you're heading towards Konoha?"

"Yeah, I heard that they worship bloodlines, so I'm hoping they'll take me in."

Chuckling, Naruto informed her, "They may proclaim that, but in truth, bloodlines to Konoha are like a bone to a dog. Once they get their hands on you, they'll never let go. The people there backstab and lie like pros, doing whatever necessary to ensnare bloodlines to their own families. Trust me, it's not a place you want to go."

Watching the girl's eyes go wide in shock, Naruto continued speaking. "Why don't you come with me? Me and my three friends here," he paused here, waving his hand towards Itachi, Anko, and Neji, who were standing several meters behind him, "are all victims of Konoha's greed. And so, we have left the village, striking out to make our own way in this chaotic world. Will you join us?"

The girl in green stopped to think about this. These people had saved her from being captured by the Tsuchikage's lackeys, and had even revealed the farce that was Konoha. With this information, there was no way she could still continue to Konoha. Even if the boy was lying, she would always have doubts about the true intentions of the village.

Her mind made up, she told Naruto, "Yes, I'll join you."

"Excellent. Ah, yes, we still haven't done introductions yet. I am Naruto. The boy without pupils over there is Neji, the guy in the cloak is Itachi, and the girl in the trench coat is Anko."

"Nice to meet you," the seven-year-old girl greeted. "My name is Toph Bei Fong."

-

A/N: Sorry about that giant delay. Problems with the computer and internet…In any case, I managed to complete two chapters. The next one will be up in a minute!

And yes! It's Toph, our favorite earth bending little girl! However, she'll be different from Toph from canon.

Also, two chapters of The Band of Nine will be coming up soon...maybe in a week or two.

-

Omake by KuroAi15

"You know how you've always wondered about what my dream was?" Naruto asked, breaking the quiet.

"Yes..."

"It's to conquer all of the villages."

Neji's eyes flickered over to Naruto again. "All?"

"Yes. All."

"Why?" Neji questioned.

"You really wanna know why?" Naruto cast a sidelong glance at his companion.

Neji nodded.

"It's so..." Naruto leapt to his feet and screamed, "I CAN CONTROL THE WORLD'S PRODUCTION AND EXPORTATION OF POCKY!"

Neji's eyes shone an unearthly gold color for a Hyuuga as he kneeled before the boy. "NARUTO-SAMA! I WILL FOLLOW YOU FOREVER AND HELP YOU ACHIEVE YOUR DREAM!"


	6. Chapter 6

_Last Chapter_

"Nice to meet you," the seven-year-old girl greeted. "My name is Toph."

-

Chapter 6

With the new addition of the tired, seven-year-old Toph, the quintet took to walking alongside one of the many merchant roads that crossed the vast country. It was a dangerous plan, as a hunter nin may at any time spot them, and Itachi was most likely by now listed as an S-ranked missing nin, but walking through the forests was an even worse idea.

As they walked, Toph wondered, "So where exactly are we going?"

"To Wave," came the curt reply from Neji.

"Why?" the youngest member of the group asked.

"We need a place to stay, and Wave provides the best opportunity."

"Oh…"

The conversation tapered off for a moment, before Toph perked up and asked, "How long until we get there?"

The other four members of the group turned as one to glance at the curious girl before facing front again.

"We'll get there when we get there," Naruto told her.

"O-oh, ok…" Toph stammered, aware of the annoyed glances that they had shot her.

Silence ensued.

-

_Bzzzt! Bzzzt! Bzzzt!_

Yamanaka Ino woke up to the sound of blaring alarm. Groggily getting up, she slowly made her way to the bathroom. When she came out several minutes later, she her tiredness was gone, and a happy smile was plastered on her face.

Today was the day! Today was the day she would win Uchiha Sasuke's heart!

Quickly getting dressed, she dashed down the stairs to the kitchen, expecting to see her father at the table with a newspaper in hand and her mother at the oven, like every other morning.

Instead, this morning, her father's chair was empty, and his newspaper lay haphazardly on the table. Her mother's face was set in a grim frown, even as she tended to breakfast.

Hesitantly, she asked, "Mom? What's wrong?"

The only other time she had seen her mother like that was several years back. The occasion then was that a man from Kumo, a far off shinobi village, had tried to kidnap a girl from the Hyuuga family. It ended with the death of the Kumo shinobi and someone from the Hyuuga family. Ino remembered that time so vividly, as it had been the first time she had seen her mother like that.

But now, that grim frown was back again, a signal that something very big was wrong.

"I-Ino…" her mother started, before choking. The news was just too tragic. "Ino, there was a great tragedy earlier this morning."

"W-what? What happened? W-was it dad? Did something happen to daddy?" Ino asked, desperately seeking answers.

Her mother shook her head. "No, it didn't involve your father. It's the Uchiha clan…"

"Sasuke? What happened to Sasuke?"

Snorting darkly, her mother responded, "Of the Uchiha clan, only your crush Sasuke is still alive."

Ino's mouth dropped, her eyes widened. "What?! What do you mean?!"

"This morning…someone killed the entire Uchiha clan. The _entire _clan, save one boy!"

The young blond felt her knees collapse. "The entire clan?" she repeated. "Dead?"

"Yes…"

"Did they find who did it?" she asked dazedly.

"No, but they do know who did it."

"Who?" Ino asked desperately.

Shaking her head, Ino's mother told her, "I'm sorry, I don't know either. It's classified…"

Without another word, Ino ran out of the house.

Only moments later, a haggard Inoichi entered the house.

"Honey? Is that you?"

"It's me, dear," came the response from her husband.

Rushing out, she threw her arms around Inoichi. "How did this happen?" she murmured into his neck.

"You know I'd tell you, but it's been classified. It's top secret stuff, very hush-hush," Inoichi responded.

Sighing, she told her husband, "Did you see Ino run out of the house?"

Inoichi shook his head.

"I really worry about that girl sometimes…"

"I just hope she can move on from this," he stated.

"Me too…Do you think she's going to become even more obsessed with the Uchiha boy? You know, the one she already had a crush on?"

"I hope not," Inoichi grimaced. "I was there during the boy's psyche evaluation, and let me tell you, he didn't seem like he was 'all there'. The doctor said he'd make a full recovery, but I honestly don't think he will. His eyes had this dark look to them, like the eyes of a crazed madman."

"Oh my…"

A sudden knocking at the door stopped their conversation. Stepping away from his wife, Inoichi went to the door and opened it up, revealing an ANBU standing outside.

Before the man could say anything, Inoichi sighed. "No need, I know. I need to get back to work, right?"

The ANBU nodded.

-

"Please follow me," the mercenary grunted. His face, covered in nasty scars, was twisted into an annoyed sneer. The source of his annoyance came from the fact that he was tasked with bringing a group of kids to meet his boss.

Taking them through the foyer up a set of stairs, the mercenary quickly strode past countless items of value. The quintet was led past rooms and rooms and rooms full of wealth and opulence, causing those with less control over their emotions to gape and gasp.

After walking up two more sets of stairs and walking through dozens of hallways, the quintet was finally brought in front of a set of massive teak doors.

The mercenary that had led them up approached the doors and knocked twice.

"Enter," came a muffled voice.

The doors opened from the inside, revealing two more men standing there at the ready, their hands on their weapons.

Stepping in, Naruto's group silently approached the massive desk that Gato sat behind.

Tipping his black shades down to look at them, Gato spoke. "You wanted to see me, am I correct? I think you said it would change the way I'd look at shinobi."

"Yes."

Gato's gaze shifted from Itachi, who he assumed to be the leader, to Naruto, who was the one who answered his question.

"You...are a bunch of children. What skills could you possibly have that would make you valuable assets to my company?"

"How about this?" Naruto asked.

As one, Neji, Itachi, and Anko spun towards the man closest to them and killed them swiftly.

"So? I'm sure if I wanted to hire shinobi, I could find better. Hiring seems like a waste of money to me."

"Hire us?" Naruto grinned savagely. "Who said anything about getting hired? We're here to take over!"

Gato stared incredulously for a whole second before throwing his head back and laughing. After a moment, his laughter cut short, and his hand slapped against a button on the underside of his desk.

Alarms started ringing throughout the mansion, and almost immediately, the thudding of footsteps was audible. The door burst open, and a group of men came through the doors, weapons unsheathed.

Unfortunately for them, a hail of kunai from Itachi ended their lives right away.

"Is that it?" Naruto asked.

"Of course not. More will be coming. You may be good, but I doubt you can handle hundreds of people at once. You'll never get out of here alive!"

At that moment, a side door opened, revealing a clean shaven man. From the sheath at his hip and his swordsman stance, it was obvious that he was a samurai working for Gato.

Placing two fingers on his shoulder, Naruto channeled a small amount of chakra into the tattoo inscribed there, causing his puppet Shinobu to appear. "Go," he said. "Take care of the rest of the trash in this place. I'll clean up here."

As Itachi, Neji, Anko, and Toph got ready to leave, Naruto called back, "Oh, and Anko, keep Toph with you."

"Damn it, why do I have to keep the brat with me?" Anko grumbled as she ran down the stairs, followed by Toph.

With only three people in the room, the room finally fell silent. The samurai crouched and placed his hand on the handle of his katana. The two combatants locked eyes.

Their staring contest was broken by Gato's impatient voice. "Well? What the hell are you doing? Kill the kid already!"

With a fierce roar, the samurai unsheathed his weapon and dashed forward in one fluent motion.

With a twitch of his fingers, Naruto fired a dozen senbon from Shinobu's left arm. The samurai whipped his sword around like a master, deflecting the projectiles away from him and into the wall. As he got closer to Shinobu, the blond puppeteer changed his puppet's right arm to its flail form before taking a mighty swing.

The other man brought his katana up and placed it against the chain, making the head of the flail circle around behind him and hit a vase. However, he did not expect it to hit him in the back.

"Oomph," the man grunted as he pitched forward. Using his loss of balance, he dove into a forward roll before coming up with a horizontal slash that left a gouge across Shinobu's front. Continuing his assault, he quickly slashed the puppet diagonally. Thinking that the puppet was done for, he sidestepped the object before lunging forward with an overhead strike. The blade was stopped before it could hit Naruto though, making the man look back to see the puppet's hand wrapped around his blade.

The samurai let go of his blade and crouched to the floor, pulling a short knife from within his clothes. He spun around and quickly slashed the ankles of the puppet, hoping to limit its maneuverability. Shinobu jumped over the blade and used its heavy metal foot to slam against the samurai's arm, which had only been brought up at the last moment. The samurai was sent flying back, landing on his rear.

With a savage grin, Naruto forced Shinobu to jump forward and pounce on the fallen man.

"Good bye," the blond remarked.

With that as his parting comment, Naruto ended the samurai's life.

Turning towards Gato, Naruto grinned savagely. "It's your turn now," he stated with a smirk.

Gato stumbled back in fear. "S-stop! I'll give you whatever you want! Please!" the short man begged.

"Not interested. Besides, if I kill you, I can just forcefully take whatever you have."

Seeing that his begging wouldn't work, the shipping magnate switched tactics. "You don't know what you're getting into," he warned. "I'm part of a very powerful group of people! If you kill me, they'll come after you! They'll tear apart all of your little friends like they're nothing!"

"Bring it on!" Naruto exclaimed, right before he kicked Gato.

The pudgy man tilted backwards, swinging his arms like a windmill. Seeing him fall towards the massive glass mural behind the desk, Naruto smiled. He leapt up and delivered another kick, sending Gato into the glass.

"Ahhhhh!" Gato screamed as he fell down four stories. A dull thump sounded moments later.

Naruto glanced down to see the unmoving body of Gato. Turning back towards the entrance of the room, he was just in time to see the doors open, revealing his blood soaked group. Anko and Itachi, the ones covered in the most blood, felt nothing at all at the blood on them, while Neji was slightly uncomfortable and Toph was outright sick.

Turning an eye onto Toph, the blond asked Anko, "How did she do?"

"Unbelievable! Her bloodline kicks ass!" the purple-haired kunoichi exclaimed.

"How so?"

"You know how we saw her stomp the ground and make the earth move? Well she can do a whole lot more! She has this weird style that combines taijutsu attacks and earth ninjutsu. She can do all _kinds _of Doton techniques without handseals! She just...flops her hand or kicks her foot and it happens! It's so kickass!" Anko explained happily.

The aforementioned girl smiled shyly at all of the praise.

"One question. We're inside a building. Where did the earth come from?"

"Oh!" Toph perked up. "Well, this place _is _built atop the ground. I just 'feel' the ground with my feet and pull it up through the floor."

"Feel the ground?"

"Yeah, you see, I figured out that my bloodline can do a lotta things. Manipulating the earth like that is one of them. I also have this ability that allows me to read the vibrations in the ground. With this, I can see things without using my eyes."

"Very nice. I'm glad I invited you to join us," Naruto commented. "None of you have left survivors, am I right?"

The four nodded.

"See if you can clean the bodies and blood up. This is our new headquarters, and I don't want it reeking of something nasty. Oh, and be sure to take care of Gato's body. He fell out the window."

"What about this guy?" Anko asked, nudging the dead body of the samurai.

"I'll deal with it later. For now, I'm going to go over Gato's banking statements, his trade logs, and everything to see all of his assets. Besides, who knows? Perhaps I'll find something interesting here. Now go."

The group of young shinobi shuffled out to do the task as commanded of them by their de facto leader. As soon as they left, Naruto walked over to Gato's desk and grabbed the first thing he could find. With just a glance at the memo in his hands, he groaned.

'_This is going to be really boring..._'

-

Hours later, his work was interrupted by the entrance of Anko and Toph.

"Naruto-sama?" Toph asked, following in Anko's way of addressing the slightly older blond. "We couldn't find Gato."

"What do you mean? He should be just down there," Naruto replied, gesturing towards the window.

"He's not."

His eyebrows crinkling in confusion, Naruto got up and walked over to the window and looked down, only to find Gato gone from where he had been earlier.

"That's odd," he murmured.

"What should we do?"

"Eh, whatever. He must not be dead then. But by now, it no longer matters. Everything he owns is ours, and he has no power. He has signed over everything he has in his possession to me," he grinned, holding up an official piece of paper with Gato's seal on it.

"There's something else," Anko finally spoke. "We found a bunch of women locked inside a room. What should we do with them?"

"Hmmm...kill them."

"What?!" Anko exclaimed. "They're rape victims, captured by Gato and his men to use as sex toys!"

"And they know too much. I want to keep this place as a secret base, to be used for future operations. Releasing a bunch of women with knowledge of this place will only endanger our work here."

"But you let Gato go! He has knowledge of this place as well! What if he tells someone?"

"He won't," Naruto stated confidently. "He has too much pride in himself to do such a thing. More likely he'll somehow raise up an army and try and storm this place to reclaim it. With the security measures that I'm going to install, it won't matter."

"Then...then...why don't we keep them as maids? We need people to clean this place up, and they'd fit just fine! And that way, we wouldn't have to kill them," Anko added hopefully.

Naruto thought about that for a moment before nodding his head. "Fine. Get them the appropriate clothes. You'll be in charge of keeping them organized, Anko, since you seemed so eager for this solution."

Bowing stiffly at the waist, Anko proceeded to exit. Before she left though, Naruto called out, "Oh, and make sure that they understand that they can't leave."

With a minute nod, the student of Orochimaru then left the room, only to be followed by Toph moments later.

-

_Hours earlier_

The pain was excruciating. His left arm was bent in the opposite direction. His right arm was dislocated. His left ankle was sprained. And he was sure he had a massive concussion. Not to mention, he could feel blood running down the side of his face. To top it all off, he was blind in his right eye!

With an agonizing groan, he managed to sit up. A few minutes later, he managed to push himself upright, leaning heavily on his right foot due to his injured left ankle.

"I fucking swear to God! I will come back and kill you!" the short man snarled angrily to himself. "I'll come back, cut off both of your arms, both of your legs, your nose, both of your ears...No, just one! That way you can hear the screams of your friends as I eviscerate them! Yes! That's what I'll do!" he cackled. "Or my name's not Gato!"

Ever so slowly, he trudged his way away from the mansion that was once his.

-

_Elsewhere, three hours later, but not yet in the present_

A man dressed in the blackest of colors rushed into a dark room. His eyes could see nothing of his master, only the shadows that formed his outline, and his master's comrades, none of whom were present in person. Almost immediately after entering, he dropped to one knee and kept his head down, eyes staring at the floor. "Master!"

A second man sitting in an impressive throne turned his eyes away from his associates, and looked down upon the messenger.

"What is it?"

"I have news for you about Number XIII!"

"XIII, hm? Speak."

"He has been dethroned from his place at the top of his corporation several hours ago. All of his hired army has been eliminated, and everything he owns now belongs to the one who dethroned him."

"And who exactly was the one who dethroned him?"

The master's associates all leaned in to hear the answer. After all, it was not every day that one of their number was defeated.

The messenger fidgeted, signs that he was nervous. This was usually not a good sign. "Well, master, ummm...it seems that it was a blond boy. He was no older than ten years of age. He was accompanied by four others, all children. The oldest one could not be older than twenty."

One delicate eyebrow raised on the master's face. "Is that so? A bunch of children managed to kill XIII and take over?"

"No sir, not kill. It seems that XIII has escaped."

"Well, my friends. You have heard what my messenger has said. We must have a trial. The defendant? XIII himself. His crime? Bringing shame upon our great organization! Jury, please vote."

The master looked at the person inside the first screen from his left. "Number II?"

"Guilty," Number II stated without hesitation.

"Number III?" His stare shifted from the first television screen to the second television screen.

"Hmmm...guilty."

"Number IV?"

"Never liked that arrogant bastard. Guilty."

And on it went. Numbers V, VI, VII, VIII, IX, X, XI, and XII all voted the unnamed XIII guilty.

As Number I, the master, he did not vote, but instead passed judgment onto the numbers below him. This organization was, after all, based on a specific hierarchy, with the person holding the rank of Number XIII being the weakest. Even then, power in this organization was not only based on physical strength, but economical and political.

"Gato of Gato Corporation, also known as Number XIII, has been judged guilty of his crime. His title is hereby revoked, and his punishment will be swift and merciless."

"Guilty! Guilty! Guilty!" the other members shouted triumphantly as they banged their fist on their desks.

Several muttered silently to themselves.

'_So Number XIII was Gato? Should've guessed._'

"Now, before we end our meeting, there is one last thing to do. With XIII dethroned, we will need a new replacement. Keep your eyes out for someone promising and send a message to me right away if you do find someone," Number I commanded. "For the Order!"

The final cry of the mysterious Number I was echoed by the remaining eleven members. "For the Order!"

With that, all of them disappeared from the television monitors that they used to communicate, leaving Number I alone in his room (the messenger having left as soon as his report was done).

Slowly shuffling through the twelve folders on his desk, his hand came upon the final folder in the pile. He opened it delicately and looked down upon the gruff visage of Gato, known as XIII to his ex-comrades. With a flick of his fingers, the contents of the folder was ignited. He let it burn for several moments before throwing it to the side.

"Gato, defeated by a mere child, hm? This will necessitate a careful eye..." With a snap of his finger, his personal guard entered the room. "The ex-Number XIII has been removed from his place among us," Number I stated. "I want you to...take care of him. Leave no evidence of your presence. And do make sure you're quiet about it this time, hm?"

"Yes, master," the guard said, bowing at the waist. "Anything else?"

"Send a spy to keep watch over the one who defeated Gato. I wish to know more about him..."

-

As she strode through the magnificent and occasionally blood-soaked halls of the mansion, Anko's mind spun at an incredible pace.

Her "God" was not what she had expected. Yes, when she first plead her loyalty to him, she knew he was not a benevolent person. He was a man of destructive power, of vengeance, of anger! But she had never expected him to be so willing to sacrifice a bunch of women (women who had undoubtedly been abused repeatedly by thugs), just to keep the location of this place safe! And besides, how did the blond leader know that Gato had never shown other people this place? What if there were others who already knew? His reasoning for their execution was weak!

Perhaps...perhaps her choice in a leader was a mistake? Perhaps this would turn out to be just like her experiences with Orochimaru? She knew she couldn't take another blow of that magnitude again. After Orochimaru, the one she dedicated her life and soul to, abandoned her without a backwards glance, she felt as if her heart had been ripped out. She remembered crying in the small bedroom of her apartment for hours. She couldn't even remember why she had decided to stay in Konoha after that, seeing as her only tie to the place had been severed. Maybe it was due to a lingering sense of loyalty to the village that her sensei once shared?

No! Belief in her master was important. He was a God, and she was one of his angels! No matter, what she would stand by her master's side, and reap the benefits when he conquered the world.

And with that, the small frown on her face turned into a cruel smirk.

-

Walking into one of the rooms on the first floor, Anko (and Toph) met the kidnapped victims of Gato's mercenaries.

Upon seeing their rescuers, the women smiled and several offered their thanks.

"Unfortunately, you'll have to stay here," Anko announced.

The women did not react too greatly to this. They had seen their families and fellow villagers killed by Gato's men, so they knew they had no where to go. With this generous offer, they were safe from more predatory men who might seek to take advantage of them in their moments of weakness.

Anko, having given her announcement, left to report to her master.

-

The door opened once more, allowing the purple-haired kunoichi and her shadower to enter.

"It's done," Anko reported.

"That's good. Now, I've made a list of things that we need to do before we can focus on external matters. The first being to establish security measures. The second thing is to explore this place and see what Gato has hidden around here. After we've accomplished those two things, we'll start on recruiting more people. With only five of us here, we won't pose much of a threat, no matter how strong we are."

"So are we going to start with the security measures right now?" Anko asked.

Naruto nodded. "Toph, can you go and get Neji and Itachi and tell them to meet me outside?"

"Hai," she said, before leaving the room.

-

With a groan, Gato sat up in his small bed in a cabin he had broken into. It had been several weeks since he lost his place at the top of Gato Corporation to a bunch of kids. His anger and hatred still burned strongly, and he had planned every day to try contact Number I or find a way to communicate Number III, who he had a semi-friendly relationship with. However, he had no success so far in contacting them, but he was not yet discouraged.

Humming happily to himself, he let himself sink into pleasant fantasies of ripping apart that blond brat's friends and torturing them in the cruelest ways. He grabbed his clothes, a poor man's clothes, he thought to himself, and left the small wooden cabin to use the outhouse that was just outside. He was halfway there when suddenly, his eyes rolled up into his head and he collapsed to his knees. With the last vestiges of his consciousness drifting away, he only caught sight of a man dressed in black camouflage with a silver knife before his world went dark.

Approaching the now dead Gato, the black-clothed man grabbed the corpse by the hair and revealed the neck. With a grunt, he severed Gato's neck and sealed it into a scroll that he just pulled out from a pouch.

Looking down at the headless body, the man spared no pity for an ex-member of his master's organization, leaving the body to rot outside of an isolated cabin in the middle of nowhere. The man, having finished his job, disappeared from the site.

The animals in the area had a fantastic meal that week.

-

A/N: Expect two chapters of The Band of Nine coming up soon.


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter 7

It had taken close to three weeks, but the defense measures for the mansion were complete. With the help of an extensive book on seals that they had found buried among one of Gato's bookshelves, Naruto and Itachi managed to inscribe traps and other such seals along the walls and grounds of the mansion. The seals included an alert system that would tell the owner who has entered, a defensive wall that, upon activating, would rise from the ground and protect the people inside from those outside, and even a whole battle system that would target and destroy whoever the owner commanded them to.

With that done, the group retreated from the outside world to practice their own skills. Under orders from the leader, Naruto, the maids would leave once a week to procure supplies. With the economy still in the dump, albeit slightly better than before, the new money from their group breathed life into the poor village. While unemployment was still scarily high, the number of shops slowly increased, and the confidence of the people climbed. It helped that Tazuna, the local bridge builder, decided that he could now build a bridge to help further stimulate their weak economy, as the bridge would bring new merchants into the area. Men from all over the village came to share in the work. Some would become Tazuna's physical labor force, while others left to fish for food to provide for all of the people. The women left at home turned to other jobs, such as manufacturing clothing for their fathers, husbands, sons, and brothers to wear, while they taught their young daughters the skill to keep the trade alive for future generations. This cycle involved no large exchange of money, relying more on a system of barter instead.

As the women were out and about, either getting the supplies or helping to clean the mansion that had become their home, Naruto and his group began to train. They were just children right now. No matter how strong they knew they were, they also realized the infallibility of their might.

Naruto's first order of business was to improve upon his hand's dexterity. Although he was learning the arts of a puppeteer right now, one could never know when the matter of life or death depended on the speed at which one could complete a jutsu. Starting off, he forced his hands into each seal as quickly as he could, trying to accomplish a goal of ten per second, which was impressive, even for a chuunin.

At the same time, Anko was tasked with training Toph, who could be ranked at a skill level of a talented genin. While it was impressive for someone at her age, it meant very little to those in the outside world. Itachi would occasionally join in and offer helpful pieces of advice, like how Toph's stance did not maximize the damage that she could deal. After a while of practicing basic taijutsu moves, Toph started to create her own style, one which coordinated absorbing attacks and returning them tenfold. With her special bloodline, this process was made much easier. Also, while she trained, she discovered a new aspect of her bloodline. This came about one evening when she decided to take off her sandals and walk barefoot outside, since the grass was nice and comfortable (she had never done this back in Iwa, mainly due to the lack of grass). As she walked, she suddenly thought about the animals in the ground and if they could hear her footsteps. Almost immediately, she started to "see" through things. At first, this had freaked her out. But after awhile, she, with the help of the two older nin, figured out that what she was seeing was the picture formed by the vibrations sent out from her feet. This gave her an immense advantage at night or in dark places, as her feet were sonar-like. To test this theory, she even started to walk around blindfolded and barefooted all the time, even at home. Within days, she felt herself comfortable enough to send and receive the sonar signals consciously, and could turn them on and off with naught but a thought. She named her bloodline Earthbending, after the way she could make the earth bend to her will with a gesture.

Neji had decided that he only needed to further refine his Tsuku no Mai (Dance of Pain). After seeing one of Toph's training sessions where the girl tried to develop her taijutsu style, the Hyuuga had a thought. His element was water. Why not try to assimilate that into his taijutsu, like how Toph did with the earth or how those of Suna do with wind? Although he would not be able to pull the water out of the air like the Nidaime Hokage did, he could use water stored in a pouch or in a scroll. Perhaps he could even use saliva or blood? That was an idea worth looking into, although both the use of saliva and blood could only be used with techniques that did not require a large volume. With his idea semi-fleshed out, Neji had returned outside with a large bowl of water, filled to the brim. The first thing he had to do was learn how to manipulate water like how Toph did. That would be difficult...

Itachi, thinking he was near the peak of his strength, did not have much to do. At times, he'd silently watch the purple-haired kunoichi train the younger black-haired kunoichi or even watch one of the other boys train. Other times, he'd jump in and offer his advice, which was very helpful, since he could spot even the tiniest of mistakes in Neji or Toph's forms with his Sharingan. He thought about testing his newly acquired Mangekyou Sharingan, but found that it drained his chakra extremely quickly. He could barely utilize one of the techniques that required that special Sharingan before the doujutsu would shut itself off.

Anko, listed in the bingo books as a B-ranked kunoichi, was annoyed with her low rating. Determined to bump herself up to A-ranked and eventually S-ranked, she would send a Kage Bunshin to train her student while she herself practiced her snake techniques and her taijutsu with a second Kage Bunshin. After many brutal sessions with her clone, she could feel herself getting better.

-

_Seventeen weeks (4 and 1/4 months) later  
_

The young blond boy snatched the manila envelope out from under the bench. Ripping the flap open, he pulled the documents out from it and scanned through its contents.

"Well? What's it say?" one of his companions, a kunoichi with purple hair, asked impatiently.

"Our client wants us to assassinate one of the local yakuza bosses from some city in Water Country."

"Wouldn't it be more logical to hire someone from Kiri to do the job?" a dark-haired boy asked. His white eyes continually looked around, scanning for intruders.

"Yeah," the blond replied, "unless the client has something to hide and doesn't want some shinobi from Kiri to be poking around."

A fourth person sighed. "So it's probably one yakuza boss hiring us to off another. That's great."

"At least the money looks good. The client gave us half now, and he says he'll give us the other half after the kill is confirmed. So let's get going."

Having started to take on missions from whoever had the money to pay about two months prior, their small band soon gained a name for themselves. They were popular among thugs because they did their work efficiently and were always worth the money paid. Not to mention, they were much cheaper than hiring missing-nin or nin from one of the hidden villages. As soon as they had finished their first mission for a kindly old gentleman (who happened to be the head of one of the larger criminal families in the Elemental Countries), they had gained instant notoriety.

Their destination, Water Country, was basically one large island, surrounded by many other islands, some at a similar size, some at a much smaller size. Without a clear path to the place, Naruto and his group had to take a boat there. Since no civilian boatman in his right mind would take a bunch of rogue nin onto his or her boat (regardless of the fact that they freed Wave from the clutch of Gato), they had no choice but to blend in as civilians. The Henge could and would easily fool their civilian senses, so sneaking on was no big deal.

Within a few days of monotonous travel, their boat finally landed on the docks on the port city in Water Country. The city, while rich due to its location, was a big mess. Dark red patches stained the ground, and holes were abundant through the buildings.

All of this did not much affect the survivors that were doing their best to rebuild their mostly destroyed city. It seemed as if they were accustomed to this. And indeed, they were. For the past two decades, war ravaged the small island country, mainly due to a rising fear of genetic bloodlines. Whole clans were destroyed when the countless mobs of frightened people swarmed them. Even then, the clans fought back, seeking to protect their own lives. The end result: the civil war of Kiri.

After receiving directions from a nearby worker, the group left the port city and headed due northeast. Their travels took them past barren forests and bloody battlegrounds littered with the bodies of the dead.

Shaking her head, Toph commented, "Wow this place...it's just so full of death."

Neji nodded in agreement. "Yes, we've only just arrived, but we've already passed by the graves of many people."

"It's their Bloodline Purge," Anko said with a shrug. "The fucking retarded civilians get afraid of something, and they decide it must go, so they revolt and try to kill everything that doesn't conform to their way of life. Typical." Her statement was tinged with her own hatred of the people of Konoha.

"They are sheep," Naruto agreed. "They don't understand whatever is different. All civilians have this fear...this fear of the unknown. And what greater unknown can there be than the powers of a bloodline limit? However...it _is _suspicious that all of the clans to have been wiped out so far are clans that have publicly spoken out against the ways of the Mizukage."

Itachi, the usually silent one, decided to add his part. "The Kaguya clan is a violent clan. They live and die for battle. I met a Kaguya one time on a mission, and when we fought, he was relentless. He fought even when the skin on his arms were burnt completely off, even when ten thousand volts surged through his body...If there truly is a conspiracy against the Mizukage's enemies, the Kaguya should not have been one of the clans to be wiped out. They surely would've supported his bloody reign."

"There's no use debating about this," Naruto butted in, before anyone could have a chance to say something. "It's getting close to nightfall. We'll set up camp here for a few hours to rest before we move onto the mission. Neji, take Toph with you and scout out the target's residence."

The Hyuuga nodded and walked off, his Byakugan activated, while Toph followed after him.

When they returned an hour later, Toph dropped to the ground and grabbed a nearby canteen, taking a large swig.

"The man's mansion is very well protected," Neji stated. "I've counted over forty patrol groups of at least three men each, although none of them look to be much more than simple thugs. Each group changes shifts every two hours, but each shift is at a different time, so that there isn't a single time when a large number of guards leave to change shifts. Also, the man has hired several dozen missing nin to be his personal bodyguards. From the size of their chakra coils, I'd estimate that they are mostly B and A ranked, with a couple C ranked nin."

With their group comprising of one S ranked (Itachi), one A ranked (Anko), and three B ranked (Naruto, Neji, and Toph) nin, a frontal assault would be totally pointless. Thus, subterfuge and deceit would be the way to go.

Neji continued, "The target is in his bedroom, and there are three bystanders inside as well. Right outside the room standing next to the doors are two non-shinobi, as well as one hidden A ranked shinobi. With my Byakugan, I've also found many hidden passages, but only one leads to the bedroom. I assume it's some sort of escape route for the target in situations like this. Anyway, getting to the passage isn't a problem, it's going through the passage that is. The hidden passage is more like a dumbwaiter. There is a small elevator-like lift that awaits at the top of the chute, and the thing is so small that it looks like it only fits one man, and only if the man contorts himself to take as little room as possible."

"Can the lift be sabotaged?" Naruto asked.

"No, the area that the lift emerges from is the most guarded place of the entire mansion. The only chance we would have of getting to it would be to create a distraction that would make all of the guards come running..."

"You know what? That gives me an idea..." Naruto trailed off.

-

An explosion sounded.

An alarm rang.

People were shouting.

Fire was everywhere.

The plan had been for Anko to walk up to the front gate, seduce the guard, and kill him while he wasn't paying attention. She would open the front gate, allowing Toph and Itachi to come walking right in. From there, all they had to do was wreak havoc, using flashy techniques to alert everyone in the compound of their presence. The target would use the escape route to flee, while Naruto and Neji would sneak in over the walls to wait at the exit of the escape route and kill the target as soon as he appeared.

However, not everything went according to plan.

Getting over the walls had been easy enough. All of the guards had left their posts to deal with the intruders, not thinking that that would be a mere diversion. Upon reaching the place where the target would appear, they were confronted by someone that Neji had not noticed.

"Two little brats, eh? I'm sure Samehada will enjoy the feel of your blood!"

It was the S-ranked, ex-member of the Seven Swordsmen of the Mist, missing nin Kisame.

"This does not look good," Neji commented.

Naruto, whose face had turned delighted at the sight of an extremely powerful enemy, smiled. Without delay, he released his puppet, Shinobu.

The puppet suddenly launched forward, its right hand becoming a deadly flail. It swung its flail in an overhead strike, but Kisame lifted his massive sword to deflect the blow.

"Is that all you have?" the missing nin asked pleasantly. "If that's it, I'm afraid that you two won't make it out of here alive!"

With a loud cry, Kisame wound his arm up for a powerful attack, planning to cleave the two boys in half. Neji rolled forward while Shinobu jumped up, avoiding the horizontal strike.

As Neji came out of his roll, his leg kicked out at Kisame's shin, but the experienced nin merely lifted his leg up to avoid it. With his momentum bringing him past Kisame, he came up and tried to hit the other man in the back with a Jyuuken strike. At the same time, Shinobu's padded foot came sailing forward. Both strikes hit their respective targets. Unfortunately for them, Kisame became a puddle of water.

As soon as they realized that their target was a clone, they changed positions. For Neji, this was the right move, as Samehada came crashing down upon his location a moment later.

"Ooh, nice dodge, little boy!" Kisame cried out tauntingly. "But can you avoid this?" The large man jumped back, made a series of hand seals, and called out, "Suiton: Mizurappa!" After a large intake of breath, he exhaled an even greater amount of water at the two, flooding the immediate area and turning it into a small lake. "You're in my domain now!"

Shinobu fired a hail of senbon from its left arm. Kisame brought his sword to block once more. While it successfully deflected the senbon, it also hid the two boys from his view. When he brought Samehada down, they had disappeared.

"That won't work on me. The water is infused with my chakra, I know exactly where you are. Suiton: Suiryuudan!"

Nothing happened that could be seen from above the water. Underneath the water, though, was a different story. The dragon that Kisame had created raced through its element, coiling itself around its two targets and rose from the water, dragging the two into the air as well. The dragon then threw Naruto and Neji at Kisame, who stood in a batter-like stance, with Samehada held like a massive steel bat.

Neji dug his feet into the ground, slowing himself greatly, and curled himself into a ball, rolling just underneath the swing of the sword. At the same time, Naruto stomped one foot down to slow himself as well, but he threw himself to the left. For a moment, Naruto thought he managed to avoid being hit, but seconds later, he felt the terrible pain of Samehada, slicing into his side, drawing a spurt of blood.

"I got one little piggy!" Kisame said with a smile on his face.

His wound, rather than healing quickly like he was used, did not close. He got up and faced Kisame, while Neji stood on the opposite side, also facing Kisame.

"Who to deal with first? Hmmm...I know! Kage Bunshin!" the blue-skinned man cried out, forming one clone. "Now we can deal with you at the same time," the two stated at the same time.

Without a warning, the massive figure of both Kisame's disappeared, surprisingly quick for someone his size.

-

Neji was panting. It had been less than five minutes, and he was already having trouble breathing. A spike of anger coursed through him. He had trained so hard, attempting to perfect and master his Tsuku no Mai. And he honestly thought he did. But after fighting against Kisame, he knew that he was no match. The other man was far more powerful, far more quicker, and far more resourceful. The man was playing with him, playfully brushing the sides of his blade against Neji's sides each time, drawing blood all around.

Desperation was quickly showing in his eyes.

With one last try, he lunged past the incoming sword and tried to hit Kisame with his Jyuuken strikes. Just as he was about to connect, pain exploded from his back. Gasping loudly, Neji stumbled forward into the space that Kisame had been occupying just moments before, all thoughts of an attack having left his mind.

"You left your back wide open when you tried to hit me," Kisame informed helpfully as he watched the dark-haired boy struggling to get up off the ground. In two large steps, he was standing above Neji. The blue-skinned shinobi raised his foot and slammed it onto Neji's back, pinning him to the ground.

Was this all it came down to? Years of training all washed down the drain? How could this be?! But...this was fate, wasn't it? What would his father say?

'_My father! I cannot die without first avenging him,_' Neji thought harshly. '_I cannot!_'

With a new source of strength, Neji pushed the foot off of him and pushed chakra into his hand. A short blade made completely of water appeared in his hand.

Normally, the Jyuuken was about pushing chakra out of the tenketsu in your hands and making that chakra move into the tenketsu of the enemy. With that forcible injection, the native chakra would attack the foreign chakra. The more chakra put into the attack, the more foreign chakra there is to destroy for the native chakra. Therefore, it takes longer for the target to recover from the Jyuuken strike. Of course, even then, the amount of chakra needed to disable the opponent for several hours is not much more than the amount of chakra needed to disable for one hour, or even one minute.

However, in this moment, with the combination of the stress of the battle, the thought of revenging his father, and the utter hatred of this man in front of him, something happened. Rather than having pure chakra gather at the tips of his fingers, the chakra was _forcibly_ expelled from the tenketsu and somehow, Neji was converting the pure chakra that left his tenketsu into a sheet of water that was spreading out evenly to cover his entire hand. When more chakra was forced out of his hand, the thin sheet of water extended from just barely covering his hand to jutting out rather prominently.

Not even realizing what was really happening here, Neji struck.

-

Shinobu was in bad shape. It was built to take hits from anything from a katana to a tanto, but nothing as massive as Kisame's zanbatou! With each hit, Shinobu's entire structure rattled. Large cuts and nicks adorned the wooden puppet.

Naruto was quickly realizing that the art of puppetry might not have been a good idea to be his specialty. He was certainly regretting it now!

Taking a quick inventory of his remaining supplies, he noted that Shinobu was completely out of senbon and shuriken, and had less than a dozen kunai left. Truly this was not a pleasant situation.

With a flick of his hand, Shinobu produced a kunai.

"A simple kunai and your flail will not be enough to defeat me," Kisame warned playfully.

Shinobu took one step back, and Kisame took one step forward. Suddenly, Shinobu flicked its foot out, sending dust and dirt right into Kisame's face, temporarily blinding him. Shinobu dashed forwards, kunai aimed at the missing nin's gut. With instincts honed from experienced, Kisame sidestepped the thrust, still trying to shake the dust out of his eyes.

With a mighty roar, Kisame backhanded Shinobu, opening up a large crack in the puppet's chest area.

Suddenly, a nearby rock smashed into Kisame's side, sending him tumbling over.

Ignoring the crack in Shinobu, Naruto maneuvered it over to Samehada, which was left on the ground after Kisame had been hit, and reached down to pick it up. Before Shinobu's wooden fingers could grip the handle, Kisame appeared right in front of the puppet, seemingly unharmed by the hit.

Growling, Kisame batted the puppet away again and picked up his sword. Even as Shinobu was flying through the air, Kisame dashed towards Naruto, intent on finally finishing the fight.

The giant blue-skinned man swung his zanbatou at Naruto, forcing the boy to leap backwards. Kisame followed, continuing to haphazardly swing his massive weapon while Naruto continued to just barely avoid being cut.

Minutes passed before Naruto slipped up and managed to be sliced across the chest with the very tip of Samehada, causing him to fall to the ground.

Kisame stood over him and grinned, revealing his pointy teeth. "Game over, punk." He whipped his sword back to prepare to chop off Naruto's head when the sound of metal cleaving through flesh was heard.

Turning his head around, Kisame saw that the man he was hired to protect, had finally emerged from the secret escape exit only to step into Kisame's swing, causing him to be bisected at the waist.

"Fuck!" he cursed loudly. He turned back to Naruto, even angrier than before, only to notice that the boy was gone.

A flare erupted into the sky from the forest, and he knew his prey had escaped him.

"Fuck!" he repeated angrily.

-

Neji's fingers, coated in water chakra to form a blade of water, dug into Kisame. Rather than having blood spurt out, water spurted out instead. Almost immediately, the clone dissolved into a puddle of water.

Tired, he collapsed to his knees. He brought his hand up, and stared at the water chakra in his hand with the Byakugan.

"Amazing," he muttered.

Seconds later, a giant red flare erupted into the sky, drawing Neji's attention towards it.

He knew what that meant.

_Mission accomplished, retreat._

Getting up from his kneeling attention, Neji fed himself a soldier pill, embracing the rush of chakra that it brought. With a sigh, he ran towards the outer wall, leapt over it, and into the forests.

-

"Oy, Toph, Itachi, the flare," Anko gestured, right after slitting the throat of an approaching mercenary.

"Let us be off then. No point in staying any longer than necessary," Itachi commented, stabbing his ANBU tanto in the gut of an attacking missing nin. The man's eyes widened, and he looked down, staring at the blade sticking out of him, before Itachi pulled it out nonchalantly and flicked the blood off of it.

"Got it, just lemme finish these two guys first!" Toph called out. The two men she was facing, some of the last mercenaries still alive, looked scared and were only standing there with their weapons in hand out of stubborn pride. The small girl slammed her foot down causing two spikes to shoot up from the earth and pierce the bellies of her enemies. "Alright, I'm done here, let's go!"

The three moved past the numerous dead bodies quickly before leaving the way they came: through the front doors.

-

A/N: Sorry for taking such a long time. I've been having a huge writer's block concerning the fight between Kisame, Naruto, and Neji. That's what took me so long. I probably would've taken ever longer if I didn't get inspiration from a fight between the Teen Titans and that girl Jinx, the big guy, and the little kid. Yay for tv lol.


End file.
